I paid for Windows 10 once. It was actually quite good at the beginning but then, through updates, Microsoft turned into intrusive garbage of a system pushing their shitty services and behaving like my laptop was their property. I’m still ashamed of that purchase. If you really need anything from Microsoft - pirate it.

got an email during university that I had been given access to an array of digital resources for free, all I had to do was link my university email credentials. Only after I had already done that did I realize how sketchy it was, but then it did actually turn out to be legit. Wish i remembered/still had access I remember there being some good stuff on there