I guess I'm in the minority. I haven't reinstalled on my desktop machine since 2014 according to the install dates of some of my apps. According to the Windows Registry I've gone from 7 Pro -> 8.1 Pro -> 10 Pro. Both upgrades happened in 2015 and since then I've just stayed up to date with the latest 10 Pro build.

I will be switching to Linux before the ESU program expires though. I use my desktop mostly for gaming and have been planning to evaluate a few distros and desktop environments. I have my own Proxmox/TrueNAS/Debian homelab and use macOS daily for work so I'm fine with the CLI and tinkering but I'd rather everything Just Works™ for my gaming machine. I did a lot of dual booting back in the Fedora[ Core] 6-12 days but ultimately it got too tedious.

I would say that the reason Windows issues are commonly treated as "reinstall it" is because most Windows installs are on corporate PCs. Most of the time, it's not worth spending the time trying to troubleshoot someone's gnarly OS issue when you can fix it in an hour by reimaging. There are exceptions, of course, but most of the time the business just wants that employee back to work ASAP, rather than doing the troubleshooting work.

Yes, before corporate even had a widespread imaging approach, it could be seen this was the way to go.

For decades I clean install Windows to a new PC one time, and that's about it for true "installs".

Then don't get in a hurry, it's my personal computer and I plan to be using it smoothly for a number of years to come.

So spend "a few" hours tweaking and adjusting settings, and this always takes ridiculously longer with each Windows version, but that's table stakes if you want to participate in a mainstream way without all the mainstream drawbacks.

Ideally of course without ever going on the internet, and then comprehensively back up the system before doing anything else.

Any valuable data is also never allowed to be routinely stored on the C: volume, that's what other partitions are for besides merely multibooting.

What's on C: should always be a minimal number of gigabytes, you have to take some kind of action or the defaults will work against you, massively. People can be misled that no attention is required and C: will be fine.

C: is best restricted to a highly-replaceable OS, containing in addition any programs you decide to install afterward, but none of the user data which is very worth the effort to carefully direct elsewhere at every opportunity.

So after I finish installing and configuring the desired programs, then another comprehensive backup is made.

Before it has even handled any valuable user data yet.

This is Windows, you can't take any chances :\

Then later, in situations when others would best re-install but with the typical hesitation, I boot to a different partition, zero the volume formerly known as C: while it is then dormant, followed by recovery of the (tweaked) bare OS backup, or using the image from when the apps and settings were also completely like I wanted.

Obviously programs that are not robust enough to withstand offline recovery from backup are too garbagey to include in a well-crafted backup image. You can't usually find this out without testing your backups in advance. It would be good before the backups are desperately needed if an emergency were to arise.

With basically minimal disaster preparation (but careful hours by necessity), you may never actually need to do a true "re-install" ever again, just recover from backup instead, and without hardly any hesitation at all. Sometimes more than once a day, in minutes. Rather than hours, which with Windows 11 the hours can now really add up and are sometimes best spread over more than one session :\

In that case it would be nice if calendar days were not required to manually get it like you could do with Windows 95 in minutes. I'm not even talking about gaming.

After all that effort I know how tiring it can be. Even more reason to back up your work before doing anything else, and test the backups routinely. Which is another whole session or two. I know it's the complete opposite of mainstream behavior, but it can really allow you to participate a lot more effectively in the long run.

I know, I know, who tests their backups anyway and why would they start now?

For consumers, routine rapid recovery has been effectively de-emphasized for decades since plenty of users respond to Windows failure by purchasing a new PC, which is crafted to be a more simplified and familiar procedure as long as they can afford it.

And it's really not the worst tragedy if they think they screwed up their own computer so bad they needed a new one, if it makes them be more careful next time ;)

To bem fair I do the same with Linux.