IMHO, Windows manageability is poor for individual consumers. Systems break even when the user doesn't do anything (due to Windows Update, or a virus, say).
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Have others of you experienced this scenario? Would you say WIndows is easy for big corporations to manage?
Apples and oranges.
In short, when something is TRULY important, it will be funded and supported. That important applies to a brick and mortar business with employees.
When something is not important in any way, then the money and intent to do things even remotely correctly is never available and is always cast as a rocket scientist wet dream wish list. This statement characterizes the majority of low end users, solo and SMB.
Everything you said - locking down workstations, pushing users to make their "My Documents" paths point to a dedicated network share, etc - are part of why Windows in corporate environments is more predictable.
Also - corporations image their workstations periodically. That's part of the regimen you cited. The idea is that if your workstation gets a virus or crashes, they restore the image from the last known good backup. And, your own work data should be backed up because you keep nothing work related on the local drive.
Small businesses and individual owners often aren't even aware that they have a choice of where to store data, they have NO understanding of the access-controlled folder system of Windows local storage, and they don't have the time or understanding or sophistication to even start to think about a backup. Also almost all end users are sublimely unaware of what a backup entails, or what needs to take place.
I'm probably blaming dumbass users too much. Microsoft is squarely 100% to blame for conflating user data with the systems it resides upon. Everything Microsoft does seems to be toward reducing user literacy and making users believe in products over skills. Microsoft's last, least concern is keeping its users data-whole in the event of catastrophe.
About 14 years ago I attempted a PC repair business. It made me want to call Dr. Kevorkian to shut things down early.
I found that every single low end user, personal or small business, was a shining citadel of idiocy. The small businesses were always so poorly managed and run that it was incomprehensible to the ones I dealt with that they needed an actual funded plan for system backups. They always wanted to schlock around and half ass things because they never had any money, and then they screamed like stuck pigs when they had system crashes and needed services.
For example, one guy I did a task for designed business cards as a side business. His one outlook mailbox file was 20 or 30 gigs due to the Photoshop files and large graphics he sent his clients. I tried to explain how vulnerable he was if the file got corrupted and I recommended a solution - regular backups. In one fucking ear and out the other. Others were exactly the same.
My overall point is:
Windows is a huge bag of shit.
But it can be contained and managed. That requires comprehension, planning, skill, time and MONEY. When you grok what Windows is, which is the job of IT service companies, its inherent shit nature can be planned around.
