But it did MOST of the times...
tsl
Very often sfc /scannow will ask for an installation media, which, in a corporate environment, means sending the machine to onsite support for either "fixing" or "reimaging". It's basically the command you should try first if you don't want to help someone fixing the issue. "See? There is something wrong with your installation, you should fix that before doing anything else..."
I used that trick a few times myself to get rid of poorly behaving people.
I use regularly Lutris, Bottles, ScummVM, Dosbox-X or EmulationStation. So I can play from GOG, Epic, Itch.Io or plain old games (Dos) / emulated.
I do have many titles on Steam as well and generally I don't look too much at whether something is verified or platinum on ProtonDB, I just avoid titles from companies like Activision, EA, Ubisoft and generally all works very easily or easy enough!
I remember when I did the switch in 2008 and never looked back. I had a similar experience where across a few years I have been trying different distributions and finally settled on Lubuntu. Years have passed and different machines as well. Now my main driver is a Steam Deck with his Arch based OS and a secondary pure Arch on a sd card for more specific tasks.
Linux made my life more comfortable and relaxed, without even mentioning secure. My family uses Linux now, Windows is long dead.
We are free.
I would say around 15 years ago, it was Windows XP