That ignores that - for at least the last 16 years - Windows has exposed a WebBrowser control which developers can use in their applications. MS could potential

That ignores that - for at least the last 16 years - Windows has exposed a WebBrowser control which developers can use in their applications. MS could potentially remove the IE icon and some of the UI, but removing the core browser component and rendering code would break third-party applications, and Microsoft has historically been extremely unwilling to do that.