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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.



Microsoft has routinely changed the display driver model, breaking backward compatibility. They've also barred print drivers.


> large part of their moat is backwards compatibility

This is more of a religious belief than truth, IMO. They could strong-arm recalcitrant customers, but they don't.


> They could strong-arm recalcitrant customers, but they don't.

They really can't. When the customers have to redo their stack, they might do that in a way that doesn't need Microsoft at all.


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.




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