Sadly, I'm at a Microsoft office and do not have this option for my work machine.

It does look like I'll be forced into Linux on my personal machine before too long, though.

It's kinda like AAA game companies waiting for a couple of weeks after a title's release (and all the reviews are done) before rolling out the micro-transaction market (and the corresponding game-balance adjustments).

Funny how when Windows XP had dial-in activation we warned that this would drift over to games if we tolerated it, and then it did.

I jumped ship to PopOS a few months back.

There are some issues, like Bluetooth not starting without some terminal commands, I think I have to wipe or otherwise mess around with my 1TB NTFS storage drive to mount it and stuff like that.

But all the games I've tried to play work fine.

CPU: 3700x GPU: 4090

Sam Reich? Did you get a haircut?

ShutUp10 is the equivalent of being in an abusive relationship and telling yourself "it'll be okay if I just don't upset them and stay out of their way". You know it'll happen again. You're just in denial and kicking the ball down the road a bit until they do it again. Use it to buy yourself time to make a plan to get out of the relationship. The sooner you leave, the better off you'll be.

Hopefully they’ll start arbitrarily deleting local files.

They already do that. If you click "yes" on everything they recommend like good cattle, they'll upload the contents of your user folders to OneDrive and delete the local copies.

10 LTSC can be gotten from there as well and is also supported for a good, long while if anyone prefers it over 11 LTSC.

Join the free side. We have penguins.

What are you gonna do about it? Install Linux?

no security updates, only ads

My entire Steam library works on Linux Mint.

93% of the top 1000 Steam games have a Linux rating of Silver (playable with minor issues) or better.
You can check the rating of your own collection here: https://www.protondb.com/dashboard

Some advice for anyone who is seriously considering a move away from Windows:

• Set your expectations appropriately. Linux is not a drop-in replacement for Windows. IMHO, it shouldn't be.
• Some things that you take for granted are not universal. Much like a new language (especially your second one) even the basics are often different.
• There is a lot to learn. If you have the patience and humility to be in kindergarten again, you'll probably do fine. If you expect to be a master quickly, you'll probably get frustrated.
• You don't have to tackle the whole learning curve all at once.
• A few notable Windows programs won't run on Linux. If you have very rigid and specific software needs, like "Photoshop is the only tool that I can use to make a living", you might consider running those in a virtual machine, or on a second system, or dual-booting. If that's too complicated for you, then you probably shouldn't try to force yourself into Linux. Maybe try again in a few years.
• There is more than one GUI (desktop environment) for Linux. Some look a bit like Windows. Some look more like MacOS. Others look like something you've never seen before. You can test drive many of them by booting from a USB "live image". In case none of them feels quite right, most can be customized. To get started, just pick one, and know that you're not married to it; you can always switch desktops later, without even reinstalling the OS. Your applications will still run.
• Investigate hardware before leaping into it. Linux supports a great many devices out of the box, and even more with a bit of configuration. If you have the means, you can buy a system pre-packaged for Linux, including drivers, just as most systems are for Windows. If not, chances are that you can still find or build a system that runs it well. Plan ahead.

For reference, there's a lot of diversity among people running Linux, from software developers to secretaries, from children to octogenarians. I imagine it's easier for kids, since they don't have as much to un-learn, but the Grandparents in my family switched to it from Windows and didn't want to go back. If they can do it, I think it's fair to say that many others can, too.

Let me give you a tip. Theres nothing to "learn" it's just a different way of clicking on some things. If all your gonna do is use steam and Internet browser just do it. There is nothing magical. Just use popOS or Ubuntu. They're made for ease of use.