You forget that Microsoft is a publicly traded company. They're doing whatever their shareholders feel it should be doing.
Many companies have been driven into the ground by bad management.
We shall have to wait and see where is MS in five or ten years from now and how much of their revenue comes from OS.
They'll release
Win 12 at the same time MacApple flog their latest glacier speed
Montes Alpes OS and there'll be a post like this to cater for it
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...I now will have to switch to Linux, which is much bigger and costlier endeavour.
I don't really see any remedy in the fact that I know who did it.
There's no need mate, if there's drama just do a fresh install of Win 7 with SP1 with your preferred apps,
and good to go for a few years yet.
With 99.999% of apps, you won't need any flapdates, patches or PC life threatening critical security BS
If you do buy a new/er PC, just ensure it is Win 7 and not just Win 10 compatible (mobo drivers etc) and brush up on the -too many- file systems available
or stick to plain NTFS, Legacy, or whatever the system BIOS gives by default on a fresh install.
This way no guessing games later for recovery or boot issues
Suggest to use the retired box for Linux
FWIW: best bet to avoid malware and security issues, is have a separate high performance/decent apps PC with no internet connection, no browser, no email, just straight up computing
Nowadays, once you hit the web, and or others do so on your fine tuned customized personal computer,
unless you are a well versed IT person familiar with dealing with disasters > run for cover