It IS a disgusied EEE gambit @TVU
Bollocks is it them accepting that they cannot beat Linux. It's Microsoft trying to stop people having dual boot systems that run Linux most of the time, with a Windows system left on it "just in case". This is another EEE strategy. It goes like this:
"Hey Linux user, you no longer have to divide up your system and dual boot it to allow you to use Linux and Windows. Just run your Linux processes on Windows. No need to partition your disk any more!"
This means that at some point in the future, when the user decides that Windows becomes too onerous Linux is actually what they want, it is a much harder task to run only Linux, and Microsoft get to count people using a Linux environment as a windows install. And once it's an accepted way of doing things, why run a Linux Kernel at all?
They already tried it some years back with GPT, where installing Windows after Linux could convert the boot record into GPT, destroying the ability to boot Linux. They also tried to suggest that Mobo manufacturers should put secure boot on all the time with only Microsoft certificates enrolled, although this was seen for what it was, and avoided.
I predict that consumer level Windows is going to suddenly get more difficult to run in a VM (it's already largely disallowed by license), to try to avoid people using Windows on Linux, making the Linux on Windows option more attractive to novice Linux users.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
