On a very orthogonal note, I downloaded the official VMs once in the past hoping that it would be like a premade Windows 'rootfs' that I could base my own installation on, like how Canonical provides the (very tiny) Ubuntu Base rootfs. Unfortunately, I learned that bootstrapping Windows absolutely requires the setup (downlevel) process because of a phase that writes which devices are present into the registry so that the correct drivers can be loaded. The setup process that runs after the base system is written to disk bloats up the footprint of the OS quite a bit.

Anyway, I'm silly for trying to treat Windows like Linux. It's quite fun hacking around with the OS though and seeing what's possible - UWF is one thing worth looking into.

The issue appears to be resolved now

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virt...

Oh nice that i am not the only one, downloaded a image 4 days ago, and it say'd "valid for 2 days", but Win11 images where still not available ;)

I like how the catalyst for this whole brouhaha is a tweet where someone jokingly prods the FTC, as if they'd be able to make Microsoft start providing pre-built VM images.

If we're on the topic of "holding vendors accountable for providing usable VM images", there are far more heinous players at the table here. Unless you're using an incomplete VM suite, most people will be perfectly suited with the Win10 ISO and container snapshots. I really fail to see what the riot is about.