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The literal entirety of the retail market across the planet has a concept called a "loss leader". You take a monetary hit on Product A with the expectation that people will come in for that AND by virtue of the service being readily available, also buy Product B, C, D, etc. I imagine, if done with minimal intrusiveness, Microsoft could easily do the same with Windows.
On paper as a concept it works. I'm not sure I'm savvy enough to understand the actual issues though.
They employ a lot of this strategy (the ads, the 'subscribe to Microsoft 365 today' 'your computer is at risk to ransomware because you aren't paying us for onedrive'). Except the "loss" part. In fact, I think it's rare nowadays to find a "loss" leader, they seem to have settled around at worst "barely profitable" in business. Too many loss leaders had pretty terrible business outcomes, so it seems to be an unpopular thing to expose your business the risk of going negative margin at any significant scale. Like this disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Opener
I must be behind. I've been under the impression that pulling people in on a minor loss meant greater margins. Perhaps COVID had a significant adverse impact on that as well.
Even before covid, I think companies got a bit skiddish about actually going negative. Probably still do on little things, but I think Microsoft at least makes Windows pay for itself while also using it as you would use a loss leader.