[Zetaphor]

You're saying that as though many of those users were given a choice.

Microsoft pays billions of dollars to make itself the default on new OEM machines. As well as providing free or heavily discounted licenses to school districts to ensure the next generation only knows about Windows.

Those 1.2 billion installs are the result of aggressive (and at times legally dubious) business decisions, not 1.2 billion individual choices to install Windows.

[Dalewyn]

The vast majority of people use computers to Get Stuff Done(tm), they couldn't care less what's driving their computers. If Windows wasn't enabling them to Get Stuff Done(tm) they would be using some other operating system; and to some degree they are, I'm seeing more MacOS where they used to be Windows these days.

Let's not forget the vast majority of people compute on iOS or Android now too, not Windows.

The reason Linux (sans Android) continues to be a meme in the consumer space is not because Windows has aggressive marketing behind it.