It’s been a long time since I used Windows myself, however one of the big reasons for switching was the inherent instability. At once point I was developing code in Visual Studio and constantly loading/closing quite a few different programs to test things out. Windows just didn’t seem to handle memory-recovery and I would have to reboot every week or two (usually because of the whole OS locking up). In comparison, I run a variety of software on my linux machines which can involve anything from testing code in multiple browsers to image editing to 3D CAD drawings. Sure that tends to drain the memory but when I close something I get that memory back. I’ll frequently get down to the last 100K of RAM, close a couple programs that may be holding large caches (Firefox really hates me having hundreds of open tabs), and then I’m right back up and running again. Reboots may occur about every 6 months.
I have to support other people using Windows at work, which reminds me how much I’ll never go back to it. My biggest frustration is that Microsoft is constantly changing things. Hell you can’t even directly reach the control panel any more, you have to run searches to find the specific item you want. Want to check the settings of a certain printer? Good luck, that doesn’t seem to be available in the right-click menu any more. It’s just all these idiotic changes making it difficult to actually use or maintain Windows. Why should I have to google how to find something when everything used to be under the control panel or a right-click away?