Corporately managed desktops/notebooks within Active directory with various security and automation settings applied. (If that sounds scary, to you, well... I have actually better piece of mind for my work laptop than home. As a bonus, I get to know the applied configurations as I was one of responsible to implement them). Yet, powering up wsl to start node application and fiddle around if necessary. To me it sounds great.

Ofcourse, node can be configured on windows too. But then you need different docker commands/builds and docker desktop now is not free for everyone, etc.

By the way, playing around with docker build for npm app within WSL, I happened to npm install the vulnerable ua-parser-js version. Security gave me a call and we were relieved that it was within windows-wsl-docker instance. So after validation, no compromise within upper layers. This was actually an eye-opener for me that, given the threats of npm and stuff, gave some serious bonus points for jumping into docker-fan-bandwagon.

Running VM takes more hassle (but is ofcourse an option). Setting up WSL and playing around was very easy. And you don't have to think about forwarded ports and mapping file system. And running "code ." within WSL felt good - vscode poped up locally but terminal/code is actually on WSL. And you get to browse your localhost on Windows that is actually on linux. Doable on VM, but then one needs to know how to configure ssh, passwordless auth.

If you are Linux-first user, yeah, maybe you don't see value. But think about it - this is also introducing windows folks to Linux!