Is there an incentive for Microsoft to build a better operating system that treats its users with respect, without invasive ads, telemetry and with a fast gui?
Windows works because it just continues to work. An enterprise can buy software, and it largely just run and run and run because they are serious about backwards compatibility.
This is just not true on Mac. See: the end of 32-bit support, switch to ARM largely worked, but some software didn't if it used particular x86_64 processor instructions.
On Linux, Ubuntu is decent but people still have issues with things like graphics drivers, Wayland, etc. etc. which makes it hard to advise it for your totally non-technical user.
On top of all this, Windows has the best management options if you're running 1000s of machines in your company.
Actually Win11 does there is no difference. Large size companies build there own image after using automated tools to rip most of it out while small companies do it manually and then build there image.
It's not that different from what a sane person would do at home other than the money spent on the tools.
Microsoft is struggling with too much legacy code base, and the software is embedded in too many places for them to make too much change. It's more cost effective to appease the existing enterprise base and minimize change, than to create a GUI that doesn't suck.
Apple will continue to expand the gap because they're not as beholden to 30 year old code.
Others will create mass-customizable AI driven GUIs (the post-Apple world) though I can't imagine this comes from Microsoft.
I think Microsoft has pretty much acknowledged that Windows isn't really a priority.
Anyone sensible switched over to macOS already, especially software developers. It may also not be perfect, but I mean it's night and day really. As a developer, macOS is just such an amazing environment (and a true Unix).
I'm glad that you've found an OS that suits you, but please don't speak for the rest of us, or call everyone who has different opinions from you "unsensible". (Personally, I find Mac really frickin annoying, but that's just, like, my opinion, man.)
That's a strange question to ask, the modern Windows gui (Win95) will be 30 years old in July.
What in that time period would lead you to believe there is any chance it will have a radical change until it's dethroned as the worlds number one business/home OS?
They did remove the Windows 8 tablet GUI. Unfortunately the problems with Windows 11 are not technical but related to the business model and thus the solution has to be on the business side.
This is just not true on Mac. See: the end of 32-bit support, switch to ARM largely worked, but some software didn't if it used particular x86_64 processor instructions.
On Linux, Ubuntu is decent but people still have issues with things like graphics drivers, Wayland, etc. etc. which makes it hard to advise it for your totally non-technical user.
On top of all this, Windows has the best management options if you're running 1000s of machines in your company.