Hi Harvey,
I routinely use low cost development boards for
specific application and attach them to either a
PC or one of low cost Linux board such as
Beagleboard or Raspberry. I also find they work
nicely in low cost test fixtures.
You haven't mentioned you development environment,
but for Windows you are probably already familiar
with the tools players and associated cost. I
settled on the Nucleo boards using OpenSTM32
running Linux since I am not a big Windows fan,
however they do offer a Windows version. The Linux
was a bit painful getting running, but it might be
a little easier on Windows. For some crazy reason
you have to register before you can even get to
the documentation which to me is the most
important part when researching development tools.
ST's CubeMx really helps in getting the low level
hardware code running without having to do a bunch
of custom work.
Also you might want to take a look at Mbed as
most if not all of the ST Nucleo board support it.
There is quite a bit of community code available
and it does not tie you to a single vendor. At one
time they only offered on-line development tools,
but may now have alternatives.
http://www.openstm32.org/HomePage
https://www.mbed.com/en/
Google has a wealth of information.
Good luck,
Mark