Im in firmware. IDEs change often depending on the chip i am working with. In some cases, the tools are better on windows, or have been in the past. It has gotten alot better recently.

I dont mind windows personally(from a usability standpoint, the spyware aspect worries me). And WSL has not caused me any issues in my dev environment.

This isnt a windows issue, its a company policy issue. If developers dont have full admin rights on their systems, its a failure of managment. If you cant trust your developers enough to give them admin rights, thats not a co worker i want to be around.

This sounds more like IT babysitting.

If IT cant trust software engineers to have full admin rights on a work computer, either the calibur of your co workers is so bad that no one should want to work there, or the IT department has such a god complex, no one should want to work there.

WSL has worked fine for me for the past 4 years.