No exaggeration. I wasn't sure why mental health improved without any other major shift in my personal life. When windows entirely disappeared once I wasn't forced to use it at work, I could only conclude Windows was the culprit. Just looking at it when I run a VM for some experiment brings me anxiety. It's as if my brain worries I'm switching back.

There is the forced aspect, which alone is problematic. I can imagine that Linux forced upon millions of casual users would bring more clients to consult with a doctor if they were to use it personally, and 8h per day for a living.

What makes Windows particularly guilty, is that while lambda Linux users would get better at understanding how computer is work, the opposite is true on windows, it is dumbing down and obscuring how things work.

The growing number of invasive ads for other MS products and their partners.

The revamping of core OS navigation features, UX for things like launching apps, the fact that in Windows 10 (maybe first version of 11) a lookup for a local app would trigger a web search with a spinner indistinguishable from local search, followed by the display MSN news..

The forced reboot when you have 12 applications running a long task, and downloads that are at 80%, after a 4h long wait on a slow server that doesn't offer download management.

the regular blue screen to prompt you for privilege escalation permission even though you had just granted it 35 seconds ago for that same app, and about to see that inception blue screen again since the very same app will keep crashing until you figure out where the bugs lurk.

I literally call the compounded effects of these: mental health hazard.