(Used 15ys OSX, now Win11)
The biggest difference between OSX and Windows is, Apple adds (some say steal) functionality from competition, and open source. They make it neat. On windows to have something working, you need a WezTerm, Everything for search, Windhawk for a vertical taskbar on the right, Powertoys for an app starter, Folder Size for disc management etc. If you spend a lot of time, Win11 can be ok to work with.
If Powerpoint and Affinity would work on Linux, I'd use Linux though.
Maybe just for your specific preferences. Terminal is plenty fine. Vertical taskbar on the right is straight up user preference. PowerToys for an app starter? Like Alfred? The start search does a decent enough job of that. Folder Size is nice, but enumerating all files is very taxing.
Oh running Ice to wrangle the menu bar app icons or Rectangle to properly manage windows ('cause Apple screwed that one up) must be unnecessary.
Each OS is going to have extension applications to improve on the OOTB experience. This is an invalid argument to choosing one over the other.
>Windhawk for a vertical taskbar on the right
Huh? Windows supports vertical taskbar.
It was removed in Win11, when they rewrote the taskbar to pretend that it's macOS dock (icons centered by default). Today your only options are horizontal taskbar along the top or the bottom edge, and icons aligned left or center.
Last time I checked, Windows 11 lost this capability and 3p solutions like Windhawk are needed. I'd be very happy if they brought this back though, feel free to share a link to some info about how to do it natively.
https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
"natively" is the key word here, this looks like a 3p hack.
That was my impression too.