My opinion: don't try to turn Windows into NixOS. You'll only struggle with it.
Set up WSL2 for all your Nix and fancy configuration needs. It acts and works like a Linux VM, except with Windows 11 you can also run GUI programs. Set up Windows like any normal Windows user would (pay special attention to the disk encryption not being enabled properly if you don't log in with a Microsoft account) and use it as intended.
Windows does not do dotfiles. Well, some Linux programs do, because they don't really care about user experience, but in general everything configuration related will be stored in %appdata% and the registry.
There is no single file configuration for Windows. There are group policy editors that can control a lot of settings, but what you're looking for doesn't exist and existing tools aren't designed for Windows. Trying to make them work will only frustrate you.
As for containers, WSL2 and Docker work fine. They're running on a Linux VM, so they work as well as they do on Linux, barring some minor overhead from networking and file system integrations.
Alternatively, run Windows in a VM if you already have the Macbook. See how far you'll come before you need some kind of hardware acceleration, you may just be able to use a VM for the few Windows only tools you'll actually he using.
I tried to go this route with a work computer and had a lot of pain with WSL2 with Win10.
Hopefully the latest versions of windows fix these issues. Too many to detail, I can only say I'm on a very locked down, managed version of windows and thankful to have an administrator account for my machine.
Windows 11 does a lot better with WSL2 than Windows 10. Performance seems better, memory usage seems to be reclaimed a bit better, and natively being able to run graphical programs is a lot better than the X server workarounds that were necessary before.
Locking Windows down does add some challenges, though. The close integration allows for WSL2 to become a method to bypass some restrictions, so it makes sense that strictly configured MDM solutions will cause issues.
Comments
My opinion: don't try to turn Windows into NixOS. You'll only struggle with it.
Set up WSL2 for all your Nix and fancy configuration needs. It acts and works like a Linux VM, except with Windows 11 you can also run GUI programs. Set up Windows like any normal Windows user would (pay special attention to the disk encryption not being enabled properly if you don't log in with a Microsoft account) and use it as intended.
Windows does not do dotfiles. Well, some Linux programs do, because they don't really care about user experience, but in general everything configuration related will be stored in %appdata% and the registry.
There is no single file configuration for Windows. There are group policy editors that can control a lot of settings, but what you're looking for doesn't exist and existing tools aren't designed for Windows. Trying to make them work will only frustrate you.
As for containers, WSL2 and Docker work fine. They're running on a Linux VM, so they work as well as they do on Linux, barring some minor overhead from networking and file system integrations.
Alternatively, run Windows in a VM if you already have the Macbook. See how far you'll come before you need some kind of hardware acceleration, you may just be able to use a VM for the few Windows only tools you'll actually he using.
I tried to go this route with a work computer and had a lot of pain with WSL2 with Win10.
Hopefully the latest versions of windows fix these issues. Too many to detail, I can only say I'm on a very locked down, managed version of windows and thankful to have an administrator account for my machine.
Windows 11 does a lot better with WSL2 than Windows 10. Performance seems better, memory usage seems to be reclaimed a bit better, and natively being able to run graphical programs is a lot better than the X server workarounds that were necessary before.
Locking Windows down does add some challenges, though. The close integration allows for WSL2 to become a method to bypass some restrictions, so it makes sense that strictly configured MDM solutions will cause issues.
That doesn't seem to apply to OP, though.