This is a good comment with actionable tips so thank you. But its not the windows bashing that is tedious, its microsoft making its products so steps like these have to be taken or the experience is hellish. I see no reason why microsoft can't make its software experience good for consumer users AND still makes lots of money.

Yes, it's annoying and particularly egregious by MS, but is there any perfect OS out there?

Apple also regularly has quality issues and makes questionable OS design decisions. I feel more in control of my OS experience with Windows than macOS.

With Linux you tend to have the freedom to change it however you want, but I'm not looking to invest my time into understanding the intricacies of Linux when Windows exists and out the box already does the job more than adequately, and essentially hassle free, for my purposes.

It's not perfect, but it's not nearly as bad as some people make out.