True. Also, people using pirated Windows make anyway a critical mass where legit users can find someone to ask for help. Microsoft doesn't care about piracy as

True. Also, people using pirated Windows make anyway a critical mass where legit users can find someone to ask for help. Microsoft doesn't care about piracy as long as regular users know more people that would help them with Windows than for example with Linux. If tomorrow all users of pirated Windows OS and related software would magically migrate to Linux, the monetary loss for Microsoft would be zero, but more legit users might be incentivized to switch away from it because of the sudden raise in Linux knowledge around them. I'm sure Microsoft would be absolutely terrified by such scenario. And then there's user profiling and advertising, which works also on pirated copies, but that's another story.