I fully agree with this story, it's dear to my heart. There's little point in me detailing the various issues as everyone has already done that. So let me give you a very brief overview of my approach to this problem. Here, I'll leave my Linux configurations aside and only comment on Microsoft Windows (for me, installing a Windows O/S is serious business). In brief, these are the steps:

• The latest version of Windows that I use (and I'm ever likely to use) is Windows 7.

• I turn off Automatics Updates off by default and disable them from starting.

• Occasionally, I have to turn on Automatic Updates on to install some stuff, even if the internet is not required/or not connected (Virtual XP mode for example).

• When I do this, I occasionally forget that I have left Updates on and connect to the internet. If Updates go so much as even near a Microsoft server site then I erase everything and start again (if that happens I deem the system to be 'unclean' and thus I can no longer depend upon it).

• I start with a 'clean' Windows 7 installation disk, specifically one with a Windows 7-sp3 on it.

• I have a separate collection of 'known' KB security patches and a few other KB files, such as files associated Windows XP Mode/MS Virtual Machine, that I install. These I install first up.

• I then do preliminary/rough settings such as configuring the attributes of the command box, change the Environmental settings so as the TEMP files are in the Root Directory, C:\TEMP etc. (so I can always gain access to them in a split second).

• Here, I also do dozens of other tweaks and settings, the first of which is to get Explorer to display 'details' mode everywhere (in some instances this is damn nigh on impossible (why do the pathetically-little-mined authoritarian Microsoft programming Nazis shits insist that we cannot display files the way we want to)? Damn Them! Even after I tweak Explorer, I install probably the best file manager there is, Directory Opus (I can configure that mostly to the way I want).

• I then nuke the following useless crap (for me anyway—I never use them), partial list only: Recovery/Restore point, Action Center, Windows Security Center, UAC/User Account Control; then I Kill and disable multiple services (too detailed to mentioned here except to mention that Windows Update is turned off and defaulted 'disabled' (I always put a note on my screen to ensue that I never accidentally enable it.)

• I then install one of the greatest and most reliable freeware programs of all time — Ivo Beltchev's wonderful Classic Shell so I get my XP/Windows 2000 looks back — or I should rightly say I revert as close as is possible to IBM's CUA (Common User Access) User Interface. (Incidentally, I've put Ivo Beltchev's Classic Shell on dozens of machines and never, ever had a single moment's trouble with it. When installed, you'd think that how Win 7 came, as it integrates so well and it's so unobtrusive that it becomes 'invisible'. You can go years without realizing it's there. 'Tis a shame that many others don't use it as an example of how to do brilliant programming/programming design.)

• I then install another truly essential utility for Windows, ERU for NT (ERUNT). This program automatically backs up the registry for past 30 days and allows it to be resorted instantly (it's saved me many times).

• I then install other important O/S related utilities such as Nir Sofer's NirSoft utilities, Sysinternals utilities and Raspopov's excellent USB Oblivion which nukes all that Windows remembers about USB dives (it removes details about which USB drives have been inserted, etc.).

• After everything is tweaked and rechecked, I consider State 1 installation to be complete. I then do a mirror backup image of the drive.

• From State 1, I then proceed through various stages until I get to Stage 5, that's when I consider everything to be installed. With each stage, I install programs that progress from small, essential, reliable and stable (well know utilities etc. such as David Carpenter's Everything which I couldn't live without), through to large unstable programs such as Gimp, LibreOffice and MS Office (only up to 2003 ver however), etc.

• This exercise takes me about three weeks to fully complete and involves literally thousands of .reg registry patches (of which I have a documented library of thousands).

• Each stage is backed up separately, this means that if I discover a significant problem in Stage 4, I can reload Stage 3 and then reinstall Stages 4 and 5 from there (this saves a great deal of time as one doesn't have to start from scratch). Also, it's worth noting that the majority of installation time is taken up with fiddly, time consuming O/S adjustments, these mostly in occur in the early Stages 1 & 2. (In one machine, Stage 1 has not required tweaking since 2015, as all other tweaks could be made further up the line.)

•Windows is configured so no essential user data resides on the Operating system drive.

That's the brief version. Oh, BTW, every change on the O/S is documented, which amounts to several reams/over a 1000 pages of info.

Whenever, I blow up Windows or it gets too dirty, it only takes me about 6/7 minutes to stream a fresh working copy of say Windows 7-Stage 5 and I'm up and running again (it's really dead easy and very quick to be back in business). Right, this is one hell of an exercise, but over the years it's paid off big-time.

Now you ask yourself, would I ever upgrade to another crappy version of Windows again when these days that exercise would be nigh on impossible with Win 10. Not in you damn life I wouldn't!

Right, I'm stuck on Windows 7 forever. Next time I have to upgrade, I rekcon I'll only be left with Linux and its kludged brother, Android.

Bye, bye Microsoft.

Oh, I forgot to mention the obvious, which is that most of this messing about would not have be necessary if Microsoft had made it easy to configure the Windows Operating System from the outset.