For the last decade, I've dual-booted my PC with Windows and Linux. I'd use Windows for creative work and gaming, and Linux for development. But"just use Linux" isn't helpful advice anymore, and dual-booting a PC comes with hassles that slowed down my workflow.
Eventually, I decided to call it quits andditch Linux for Windows. My dream developer setup now works on an OS that not a lot of developers like, and for good reason.
Dual-booting was slowing me down
The constant reboot tax is real
Like a lot of developers, I also believed that the terminal is where real development happens. Windows was an OS I was stuck with because I had to use Adobe's Creative Suite for my job and, of course, my games. I spent any time off trying new distros, tweaking configurations, and moving more and more of my workflow into Linux to avoid having to boot into another OS and waste time during work hours.
Then I stopped pretending and built something that actually made me productive.
Don't get me wrong—Linux is fantastic. The open-source community is incredible, the ecosystem is powerful, and if you're running a production server with real stakes, it's still the gold standard. But for someone whose work is divided into photo and video editing, writing, testing software, and shipping code, the dual-boot approach is more of a speed bump than an advantage.
A very common problem I ran into was needing to open Photoshop or Illustrator to work on a graphic while building client websites. I would have to pause writing code, save everything, shut down Linux, and boot into Windows just to use a software for 10 minutes before I needed to head back to Linux again. The OS switch was a massive waste of time, especially considering I needed to do it multiple times a day. Not to mention the hit my productivity took while I had to break flow and switch to another OS.
I also tried VMs for a while, but running two OSes simultaneously requires power, and that eats through battery life faster than you can guess. Since I use a laptop as my primary computer, performance issues also plague my work. VMs are great for testing or quick jobs, but bare metal remains the best way to run an OS.
Attempts to change my workflow to better suit my OS hopping also proved fruitless. When you're working with a team of people who aren't exactly running on your schedule, unplanned situations arise a lot. I might just need to access a Windows-specific tool randomly, no matter how well I plan things, and that's a good 10 minutes wasted just switching OSes and opening or closing programs multiple times a day.
There's a big gap between what sounds coolest in theory and what works when you're trying to work. My switch to Windows wasn't a betrayal of open-source principles. It was more like finally admitting that Linux puritanism was costing me precious time and productivity.
Windows development isn't as bad as you think
WSL isn't the meme it used to be
My Windows 11 setup is built around WSL2 and Windows Terminal, which is a far superior terminal experience than what Windows offered just a few short years ago. I'm running Ubuntu in WSL2, which means everything I love about Linux is there—the package managers, the shell scripting, any tools that I use—without sacrificing the native Windows ecosystem.
VS Code with the WSL extension is also a pretty good package. I open a folder in my WSL distro, and VS Code just knows to run the remote connection. IntelliSense works. Debugging works. Git integration works. I'm not fighting file systems, performance issues, or dealing with weird path resolution problems. It just works, which sounds boring until you realize how much brain power you waste on Linux fighting things that shouldn't be problems.
You can also run Docker Desktop on WSL2, so containerized development environments spin up identically to how they would on Linux. When I need to deploy to a Linux server, nothing changes. My code targets the same Linux environment it always did.
You get all this with the ability to run native Windows applications. I can use Visual Studio for C# development when I need to. I can use Windows-specific debugging tools, native installers, and more without worrying about compatibility layers.Windows-on-Linux tools aren't as good as they seem, and when I'm working on Windows-specific stacks, I don't have to use random workarounds to get applications running.
Last but not least, Winget, as a package manager, finally gives Windows a declarative dependency environment that macOS and Linux developers take for granted. I can automate my entire development environment setup with a single configuration file. No more manual clicking for hours in various installers. When I set up a new machine, it takes minutes instead of hours.
It's not perfect, but it works
The quirks I still live with
Windows 11 still feels like a work in progress, and that shows up in daily use. Updates still break functionality, you don't have as much control over the OS, and there are hiccups now and then that could easily be fixed with a few terminal commands on Linux.
Even with WSL2, you're still juggling two worlds. This is bound to create some friction, like path differences, file permissions, line endings, and sometimes even case sensitivity can bite you when you're moving between Windows-native tools and Linux-based ones. And if your production environment is pure Linux, you're effectively adding another translation layer.
Most of it works fine, until it doesn't. Weird networking issues, edge-case file permissions bugs, or a small difference in how something behaves in WSL compared to a real server can cost you hours you wouldn't otherwise waste on Linux.
Then there's the issue of resource overhead. If you're on a relatively old or weaker system, Windows itself will eat up a ton of resources, leaving you little to work with during development or even daily tasks. These are the situations where using Linux would make more sense.
Everyone says Linux is better than Windows, but I’m not buying it
I get the love for Linux; I just don’t share it.
And of course, there's the background noise that comes with Windows. Telemetry, preinstalled apps, and Microsoft are pushing cloud-connected features you may not want on a development machine. You can turn a lot of it off, but it takes time and care, and major updates still have a habit of re-enabling some features you never asked for. It's not a deal-breaker, but if you care about tight, minimal, and distraction-free systems, Windows will annoy you from time to time.
It might be time to revisit Windows
The OS everyone loves to hate
The Linux community insists on the fact that standardizing Linux makes you more professional or serious about development. Linux is definitely better in some regards, yes, but it's not the universal solution to all problems that it's often hailed as. Professionalism is about delivering, not the ideology of your OS. I work faster on Windows, can use all the tools I need, and end up with a smoother workflow.
When I need actual Linux, it's literally one WSL command away. I'm not dual-booting, I'm not running virtual machines that drain system resources and battery. I'm running both of them simultaneously, and they talk to each other without friction.
Windows has become more usable and serious about developers, and it shows. It's not about choosing Windows instead of Linux. It's about having a machine that works for you, instead of the other way around.
