I run win 7 pro but never ever let it connect to the internet and have updates completely turned off. It’s running just as nice as it was when first installed. Should be that way forever. The more you update windows, the slower it gets. If I never connect to the internet, I have no reason to install security updates. What am I securing against? network/internet. I don’t connect to either so the OS is isolated. There are only two windows programs I use and neither require a connection.
Something I plan to do with my next full linux install is to create a partition for the Home folder. Makes it super quick to swap flavors.
Windows is different because config files go in all kinds of places plus you have the windows registry. Docs and stuff are easy enough. There is a windows docs & settings export/import but I’ve never used it.
Something I recommend is to have /home on its own disk(s). When I did my last physical system rebuild, I replaced what was the old boot drive with a new reasonably sized SSD. After doing the OS install, none of my /home data had been touched. I just booted up and went back to work.
For backups, 'backintime' pretty much can't be beat IMO. It is similar to the Mac 'time machine' program and is based on rsync. It is freaking awesome. I have an external drive that I periodically swap out with another one that has backups going back to 2016. I have older backups on other external drives that I can recover stuff from as well if I need to.