Install Park Control and disable core parking, this is one of the most important tweaks you will need to make for audio.
https://bitsum.com/parkcontrol/

 

If you ask most major educational and corporate institutions how they update, aside from the fact they have their own update policies, they tend to always wait until the smoke clears before they go to the next O/S or regular network updating system.
This is one of many reasons why they have I.T departments. In this case, the I.T departments tend to create a layer 3 switch with different I.P's to test anything new on a different network prior to any rolling out.

Us home users should think similarly or at the least, make a cloned SSD/HDD or backup, or the RAID if that's what you have, prior to any new O/S installation. Everyone has been guilty of not doing that at least once.

As for computer makes, both PC's and MAC's use Intel chips nowadays(PC's also have AMD), and have the identical graphics, sound modules/cards etc available for either, so it's often what a personal preference a person has for home use. It's not quite fully there yet, but it is almost like choosing a different make of car, they both do much the same thing (almost). Some applications work better on a MAC still and also, some work better on a PC though both have more than an acceptable usage of all.

As for Windows updates, you can turn them off including all of the telemetry and all of Cortana. Read up on it first prior to installing. If your 'puter does the job and delivers your personal preferences, it does not really matter what make or model it is.