Some of us have windows just to play games, sometimes on our tv’s with a controller but that’s impossible when you have garbage popping up constantly. There’s definitely a demand for windows that can play games and do nothing else.
I imagine using steam in big picture mode would be equivalent if you're not streaming though. Maybe it's something else, I just can't remember a Windows pop-up ever interrupting my gaming whether I'm playing on my TV or not.
Bonus: disabling autorun is better security!
I don't think there's a need to dramatize and exaggerate. Once you get setup on Windows and uninstall the stuff you want to uninstall that’s pretty much the end of it.
Important account credentials are on macOS or iOS. Local copies of my important files are on a system running Linux, and the Windows machine doesn't have access to that (doesn't need to, all I do on it is play games, if I didn't PC game I wouldn't have Windows at all).
[EDIT] However, mine does have Windows Update turned on.
>> Some of us have windows just to play games
What bank accounts do you think are on that machine? Perhaps it's risking credentials to ex. Steam and such, but again, if all you run is games where are you getting malware from?
Edit: Actually, to steel man the argument: If you pirate a game and get a keylogger that way, and then type in your credit card to buy a game (ex. on Steam), then you'd have a problem. I maintain that it's perfectly possible to maintain a... "DMZ PC" for games, but there are ways for it to end badly.
> There’s definitely a demand for windows that can play games and do nothing else.
It's called a "games console". Microsoft makes one called XBox.
I like being able to use emulators. Can XBox do that?
I like being able to use mod's for any given game. Can XBox do that?
I use Linux for my gaming these days because I just don't like Windows, but even Windows is much more powerful for gaming than a console.
There's a place for console's, but they don't replace everything.
PC gaming is a weird and wonderful ocean; console gaming more like a highly curated pond.
I suspect XBox isn't good for this, but the Nintendo Switch is actually probably better than a PC for this particular usecase.
The general-purpose stuff (emulators, mods) I agree with, though.
XBox I actually called out specifically because when we got an XBox 1, we discovered there is no way to do anything - setup of the console, launching a game, etc - without having an XBox Live account per user of the machine.