I use qemu/kvm with vm manager. There’s a lot of other options too. Most of them are valid indefinitely.

I use the Win11 LTSC IoT Enterprise Image, because it cuts out most of the usual windows bloat. Maybe have a look at massgrave.dev.

You can hand over a USB device fully to a Windows VM. That’s how I update my Yamaha stuff.

That building looks kinda like a stick of ram from the front.

I am already self-hosting Matrix for my friend group. I suppose where just gonna move more and more stuff onto there. Doesn’t fix the issue, but you don’t have to go quietly.