Gaming for me is mostly fine on Linux, it's running Ableton with standard plug-ins that doesn't work, surprisingly. Basically the only way I can run my own hardware for a music rig is through Windows. Also the odd thing like "run this firmware update utility" for various devices, then you'll have to go forum diving where people have tried all the workarounds to realize the workaround is just "use winblows."
I'm a mixed environment sysadmin for almost 15 years so Windows doesn't bother me as a product as much as others, I don't like Microsoft's business practices, but I can pretty much disable anything I don't like on Windows Enterprise. Like they are compliant with security regulations regarding critical infrastructure, as much as people justifiably rant about privacy concerns they try and force on to end users, but you can get around a lot of that with the same old commands. Our isolated environment isn't sending data to Microsoft or anything from our workstations for instance, and this traffic is heavily monitored and audited.