If I have to, I always drill near the bottom, behind the baseboard (if my translation is not completely off). I hide the hole behind it and when the next wallpaper change is necessary I make a slit to the normal height and install an outlet. As a short term solution you can use the cover as cable duct until you are ready to do it properly. Keep in mind to always make straight cuts so you always know where your cables are going.

Just make sure not to use a hammer drill on modern bricks. They have very fine comb like structures and crack if you look at them the wrong way. For hollow bricks the hammering is a neat feature though.

Client and server Windows are very similar since Server 2008. A client Windows has many limitations which are mostly non issues for home use.

The biggest annoyance for me is the update mechanism and how they tried to enforce it more on newer versions and even started crippling the Professional version in many ways. For some time I even felt the need to have a WSUS setup at home.

Many might also be tempted to run their Windows as kind of mainframe, like a jack of all trades. Virtualization, even in pure Windows environments, opens a lot of possibilities. If something sounds complicated in Windows, just setup a specialized VM to do it. Not that Windows can’t do something, but other tools might be more suitable for people that don’t work with Windows Server day to day. Like, I would never build a firewall with Windows, even though it is possible.

I use DNS blocking as addons are not really a thing on all mobile devices, but I also roll out uBlock Origin via GPO on Windows as it can better target scripts instead of blocking whole domains and is most of the time able to block detection scripts. The best of both worlds I guess.

I have mine still collecting dust somewhere. Died after 2 years and I got no compensation at all. Went fully SSD for my non storage systems after that.

For your original question: I would not bother with a CPU with less than 6 physical cores. 4 laptop cores might work, but you can’t upgrade them.

Laptops have some advantages and if you already have one it is a valid alternative, but I would not bother buying a new laptop.

Advantages are built in battery as UPS, keyboard and display, but upgrading is very limited. If it has an additional dedicated GPU you might even forward that to a VM.

32GB ram should work, but with 64GB you will have more possibilities. Some laptops are limited in functionality, but new ones should have the necessary virtualization options. With 6+ physical cores modern laptops have some great virtualization potential, but with modern big/little core Intel CPUs virtualization might need some additional tweaking.

Cooling wise it might be worth looking for a model that doesn’t push air out in front of the opened display. If you store it closed the limited cooling can cost performance.

Thunderbolt is a good but expensive way to add new hardware like 10G networking or fast external storage.

Personally I extended my lab with an old Dell Precision 7540 workstation laptop, which is really great but not cheap.