Comment by hackyhacky
4 hours ago
It's not an emergency at Microsoft for two reasons:
1. Microsoft doesn't make their money from Windows anymore. They make their money from services, like Azure and whatever they are calling their web-based Office this week. Windows is now mostly a telemetry-collection system for them, not a product.
2. People who hate Windows don't have a choice. Regular people are issued a PC and its OS from their employer, and can't change it. Consumers who buy low-end laptops for school or hobbies aren't going to pay twice as much for a Mac. And outside of HN, a vanishingly small number of people are even aware of Linux or other FOSS alternatives, much less have the ability to install and use it.
And PC gaming. Despite the massive amounts of improvement to Linux gaming thanks to Wine & Valve, if you play games that rely on kernel anticheat, you have no choice but Windows.
I'm hoping now that Microsoft seems like they might get serious about kicking people out of the kernel after the cloudstrike incident, kernel level anticheat may go away which will pave the way for Linux to completely take over.
Don't schools typically use Chromebooks these days? My daughter was issued one each year from grade 7 to 12.
Microsoft stopped chasing the education space with the wind down of 11SE [1].
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/08/microsoft-kills-wind...