A windows compatible OS is a good idea but it looks more likely to be Linux.
Having a full Windows desktop with a Linux install saves me from formatting and partitioning into yet another installation mess that Linux still has and choosing a distro while not messing around with display managers or searching around why some apps do not display correctly when connecting to an external monitor.
The best Linux distro is Windows (with WSL).
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
And yes that USB gadget thing. I had to use it recently to turn a RPi Zero into a parallel -> USB converter. It's impossible to debug and sometimes makes you question your own sanity. Here's my script that does it: https://github.com/grishka/miscellaneous/blob/master/AVDecod...