I have never had any trouble with FFmpeg on Windows. Even building it from source or building programs that use it is pretty foolproof with MSYS2. FFmpeg also has Windows specific features like DXVA for video decoding and (recently) Schannel for TLS.

It seems like this library is specifically for integrating FFmpeg with the built-in classes for video playback in Windows Store apps, but you don't have to use those classes to use FFmpeg on Windows.

FFmpeg on the command line on Windows has been fine for me every time I use it, using the Zeranoe builds. They seem to come with the right codecs and everything.

Those are the ones I also use and it hasn't been flawless for me, BUT I tend to do a TON of video for professional production (Happens only a few times a year). I get hiccups that I don't know everyone would really notice or care about, but is HUGE for my purposes.

Edit: Works Flawlessly in Linux.

I do too. The only thing I miss is QuickSync support. But I don't feel brave enough to come up with my own build.