Microsoft is also trying to make drivers and similar safer with HVCI, WDAC, ELAM and similar efforts.
But given how a large part of their moat is backwards compatibility, very few of those things are the default and even then probably wouldn't have prevented this scenario.
These customers wouldn't be able to do that in time frames measured in anything but decades and/or they would risk going bankrupt attempting to switch.
Microsoft has far more leverage than they choose to exert, for various reasons.
But given how a large part of their moat is backwards compatibility, very few of those things are the default and even then probably wouldn't have prevented this scenario.