I was in a similar spot, except with the addition that I gave up on installing a Linux VM/WSL because my gaming laptop came with Windows 10 Home (which doesn't

I was in a similar spot, except with the addition that I gave up on installing a Linux VM/WSL because my gaming laptop came with Windows 10 Home (which doesn't support Hyper-V) and I didn't want to shell out $100. However, recently I gave it another shot, as WSL2 apparently works just fine on Windows 10 Home, and I was surprised how easy it was to set up. Took me less than an hour to get WSL2 set up and hooked into VSCode with all my preferred settings. I recommend giving it a shot next time you have some inspiration.