On and off over the last 15 years or so.
Only recently have I become much more comfortable & able to resolve things without resorting to search, stackoverflow etc.
The turnover point was the day I finally learned vi & cron so I could fiddle with an old Buffalo NAS, that was long out of support, riddled with security holes, and offered only very limited tooling.
Was a great learning experience, but it didn’t pan out the way I wanted. So it runs Debian now, supports modern protocols, and continues to serve. Amazing what you can keep in service when you try.
To its credit (of which there is little), Windows can handle most things these days just fine without externally obtained drivers. Gradually improving since 7 onwards. The only sore spots really are proper gfx drivers and printers. 10 and beyond will also gracefully handle being drive-swapped into completely different hardware.
If it’s a reinstall, activation is automatic for OEM licences.
Step 4, yes, what a shitshow. Way too many hoops and hurdles to go through just to get a functional OS without the bloat and guff.