Windows wasn’t fully usable until the terminal and WSL shipped. And now isn’t due to adverts and loss of local accounts, and other hostile anti-features.
Windows 7 was the first version that gave me stability that made Linux feel like less of a must-have / only option.
Windows 11 largely gives me no problems and has worked perfectly fine with the hardware I've thrown at it, with no effort on my part. WSL is definitely a bonus.
The same just has not been true of Linux for me during the same time period with the same pieces of hardware.
I still happen to run NixOS on my laptop (the most recent of 6 distros, and Windows, I've tried over the past couple of years). It's not been entirely trouble-free but (thanks to the Arch wiki, mostly), it's in a decent state now.
And you are right about the hostile anti-features, though, and that promises to only get worse.
My windows PC has been relegated to games and will likely get whatever first stable, headache free SteamOS+NVIDIA incarnation turns up.
I've got no more affection for Windows than for Linux. There are just cases where the former has given me fewer headaches than the latter.
Sounds like a hardware issue on the Linux side. Been using Dell developers for decades and recently Frameworks and had only temporary issues with brand-new chipsets. Star labs tablet is great as well.
On the Windows side NT 3.5 was rock solid with limited software selection, 4 was decent, XP was fine for me behind a firewall but not everyone was so lucky on the security angle. No one liked Vista but I don't remember it being due to crashing.
Sounds like the wireless card issue of a few years back. Believe it was fixed by replacing the cheaper module with an Intel wireless card. Never affected me.
FWIW, for me Linux stopped being better than Windows around Windows 7 and still isn't back.