If you’re managing fleets of windows installs you should already be using some kind of autounattend.xml script for settings like Automated Winstall. More info in this video. You can also use older Windows 11 ISOs and update after setup if you’re uncomfortable with that.

Not defending the decision by Microsoft, just pointing out some workarounds that should continue to work.

Both the default network mounting options in Gnome and KDE won’t let applications access the network drive. You have to mount using SMB4k or cifutils if you want application access. I’ve not used MacOS in over a decade but that functionality works seamlessly in windows for SMB shares. It’s honestly a minor reason (among others) I went back to windows.

This is a pretty decent overview of the ideas in that book for anyone who is interested.