I’ve been tinkering with my Linux machine for the past 8 months or so, and having random issues like the ones I listed and more besides that I’ve already solved. Meanwhile my old Windows 7 machine has been working flawlessly for about 8 years, no regedits or crap software issues. I think I had a driver issue with my mouse a couple years ago that I clicked a button and it fixed it. My laptop running Windows 7 also has been working flawlessly since about 2016 beyond prompting me to format media that I connect to it, but I press a button and that goes away. Recently I’ve been having compatibility issues with software because it’s such an old OS but as you said, that’s a 3rd party software issue, not a problem with Windows 7.
Glad your Linux experience is so smooth though. Must be nice!
Why do you think that asking questions, making a hypothesis, testing that hypothesis and writing down the results is unethical?