Apparently it was wasting time trying to circumvent a product built to steal IP and invade privacy. Every update will reset any customisations and plenty have ignored group policy. Microsoft are implemtning access controls that will also remove the ability to customise as deep as you have been (kernel level protection) so bye bye admin rights.

You want a declarative operating system? NixOS. It will change how you approach templating and the standard environment.

Its config language and structure doco is annoyingly lacking but the community fills the gap with the added benefit of everyone sharing configs. Its also 2024, Linux is vastly different than it used to be. Hell nvidia is stepping up because cloud AIs..