You spent $2000 on a new machine but wouldn’t shell out another $20-30 for a windows pro key? You’re willing to burn a bunch of time fiddling with getting a completely new operating system setup, but you’re not willing to spend a few minutes fiddling with setting up an offline windows account?

I get that maybe that was the final straw or something, but come on, “I switched to Linux because I didn’t want to take an hour to set up Windows” really sounds like you never really wanted Windows in the first place, you were just looking for an excuse.

The main difference, in my opinion, is that to set up Linux one doesn't need to work around the expected behaviours of the OS.

And why would anyone put so much effort into making Windows usable now, when there is not knowing what Microsoft will do next?