What do you need that doesn't run on Linux or some combination of virtualization or software tools?

I cut Windows out of my life almost entirely after the encroachment of user hostile policies such as telemetry and have found I don't really miss much.

For me it has been Fusion 360 and Adobe CC that has kept the one windows hold-out alive among my systems. I've been trying to transition to freecad and gimp (would be very grateful for any lightroom/photo management suggestions for linux) but I just haven't had the time to learn them throughly enough to switch.

Does everything else you need either run under Wine or a locked-down windows 7/8 VM?

It's mostly music software, but I have to give it a try in a win VM.

Same for me. I've heard that attempting to use WINE/JACK for progs like ableton can add measurable latency which can be detrimental when using ASIO, but maybe a full VM would work better.

If you need bare metal Windows performance you could always dual boot Windows AME.

This is on Windows Home then?

[citation needed] on that attempted forced MSA claim. I use a local account from inception and have not had a single issue being bothered to use an MSA.

Agree with you. Used to use an MS account on the old installation, whose HDD died. Now using Win10 Home with local account and it hasn't tried to sneak me on to an MS account after the install process itself, where I still found the option to skip creating an online account as early as three months back. Supposedly Home is most restricted Windows version.

However this does mean I don't get sync and other fancy features like locating the device and other remote stuff. Not particularly bothered, but I do wonder if my old MS account will get deactivated after a certain period of disuse. Perhaps I'll just login on the browser to keep it alive.

I'll make photos next time. All I can tell you is that I have win10 pro with a local account and from time to time after update I get forced through some stupid wizard which I can't skip unless I ctrl-alt-del out. There is no skip button or do this later button.