Just to address your feedback a bit:
– No SD card so jump to network.
Manually swapping cards has always been an annoyance, that’s why I switched to USB in the first place. And since USB worked so well I never bothered to stock up on SD cards.
– Windows fails, so jump to Linux.
One computer failed, so I switched to my backup. It was running on linux so I figured I should try to get more experience with it.
– Cura fails so jump to Octoprint, Octoprint fails so jump to VNC.
I had a thing to print, so installing Cura seemed like the quickest fix. When that became a lot of work I figured I was better off putting that work into a better and more permanent setup. Octoprint has been on my wish list for a while.
When this also proved to be a major undertaking I switched my primary focus to VNC so I could work from my work station.
And to my defense this is exactly what I ended up doing once I had rebooted to Windows and updated the system. First I installed VNC, then I could work on Octoprint and the webcam solution. And except for it running on Win10 it’s everything I could have hoped for.
As for Linux my experience always reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvswW6M7bMo