Re: Serious question here...
"what is the architectural difference between Windows and Linux that gives Windows the need to restart after any (or most) updates?"
It is, primarily, the file system and the way Micro-shaft uses "paranoia" with respect to files [it seems their philosophy is one that assume disk contents can change behind the OS's back, or something...]
In winders, if a DLL is in use, it cannot be updated without first shutting down everything that is using it. In Linux, files are 'inodes' and directories simply point to the inode. In Windows, the file is the name, not the node (though with NTFS this shouldn't HAVE to be the case, as I understand it).
Windows doesn't allow you to delete a file and still have it "exist" until all references close it. Linux does. And so, with a Linux system, if you have a bunch of daemons running that are referencing a shared lib, they CAN continue to use "the old lib" until you restart them, which means you can take your time to update shared libs, then just restart the daemons and you're done. It's also the same with executable files.
In Winders, it's all 'paranoid'. A DLL (or EXE for that matter) is *locked* and cannot be updated until ALL references to it are closed. This forces the updaters to a) write temporary copies of the new DLL, and b) rename them on reboot.
Back in the win '9x days, this was an easier process, and of course there's an API function available that installers can use to leverage this. But it _DOES_ require that REBOOT.
And over time, the process has become more and more complicated, with replication of system DLLs and things of THAT nature.
And don't EVEN get me started on updates to "the registry". Linux does JUST FINE with config files ('systemd' nonsense notwithstanding) stored in 'well known' directory trees such as '/etc' '/usr/share' and '/usr/local'. And running daemons often have a 'reload' option to update them with the changed files, letting you edit them at your leisure, then tell the daemon to re-read it, etc..
Suffice it to say that the SIMPLE and ELEGANT architecture of Linux, being VASTLY SUPERIOR to the kludgy and paranoid architecture of Windows, means that updates [other than major kernel updates] do NOT require a reboot... JUST a re-start of the affected systems.
[but it never hurts to boot Linux after a massive upgrade - sometimes things just don't work right until you do]