Vista was truly the greatest Windows I’ve ever used. I had been using 98 and XP when I bought my first Laptop (the first computer that was truly mine that I had bought with my own money) and it was running Vista of course. Being a curious computer user I twiddled with the system a lot and it broke A LOT so I learned fixing (or reinstalling it) eventually I figured out that Windows only lets you get so far in twiddling and customization so I tried out that hacker OS Linux with a dual boot at first and eventually switching completely. Haven’t run Windows as a daily driver since ~2011-12 now working as a Linux Sysadmin. All thanks to that stupid piece of shit Vista :)
I’m in the lucky position that I always could work with Linux. I was working with people that couldn’t be bothered to run Windows on their Desktops (administering mostly Linux Servers anyway). In my first job we had a “Standardized” Fedora desktop that was actually attached to our AD so you could log in at any desktop with your domain user. However we did have internal tools and some software requirement that only were available on Linux meaning everyone in our department had a Windows VM for using those tools (kinda overkill but ok). My last job we didn’t have any standard other than the system had to be encrypted and had Eset installed other than that we could set it up he was we liked.
Could I work with a Windows desktop? Sure I’m on the Terminal sshing into systems 98% of the time anyway but at the end of the day I love to simply be on Linux having a workflow I’m used to.
Regarding Office I was just using Office online for anything that needed it.
Getting Linux Systems into AD is possible (but of course requires cooperation on the side of the IT department)
Proxy and VPN should mostly be doable (but of course might not be able to be deployed via Group policies)