Oh boy. I’m sorry for my ignorance. Haven’t touched Windows since win 7 came out and did not expect it do go down that much, that sounds like win95 self install.

But still, I guess it is easier more the majority, since you “just” need to follow the instructions on the screen and not think it look into alternatives, which you need to get on a viable device etc. I guess here “easier” means something else than “less complicated”. Only solution I could imagine would be if PCs would be shipped with something like a sophisticated version of netboot, or of course you can choose the os when ordering, but that only viable on smaller scale. But even than… People would not go through the list and just go with what they know. Didn’t mean to post such a wall of text… just random thoughts coming in

People usually use Windows because it comes pre installed. I doubt arch install is easier than that ;)

If you are lucky your system is atomic or has other roll back feature. Otherwise it’s reinstall time.

I guess you could set up a fresh system, run a script that goes through each folder checking the permission and setting it on the target system.