Anyway, I don't PC game outside of emulation, so I'll never have a need for Windows.
I have a separate machine for Windows 10 and modern games because it's the simplest way to cluster them together (like a console). I also have older machines for DOS/Windows 9x games, although most of them need repaired. I most use emulation for non-PC because I don't have the hardware and am unwilling to generally invest in a variety of systems.
Apparently games are the only reason to keep Windows according to Windows users, but I'll never understand that level of Stockholm syndrome.
Well, that's more the specific point to keep Windows. The more general reason is that Windows is "good enough", and they don't see an advantage to learn a whole new system while still maintaining a Windows system for games. I understand where they're coming from, and even a simple, good VM isn't good enough. To get a console-like experience, the best situation would be something like a collection of overlays (representing OS, drivers, patch set, and enabled hardware) that's specific to each game. Actually managing all that is very tedious, and any attempt to group manage it is likely to break copyright.
So, this is one area where DOSBox's ability to emulate hardware, a fake DOS OS, and have a relatively compact config file is nice. But it's too unreliable to just run a random demo* or report a bug on an old game and know it's the game, not the emulator, that's the issue.
* Seriously, as just an example of a stress test try
Assembly '94 demoes. In VMs, my experience is VMs tend to crash or perform horribly. DOSBox tends to be better, but tends to have flickering, stuttering, and/or missing sound..and it might crash. Games thankfully aren't normally nearly as bad, but I want to aim for 100%.
