Save your pity. I love Microsoft and so does most the world.
Oh I used to too, er, also.
DOS, Win 3.1, 3.11, WFW was a personal favorite of mine, then 98 and finally, MS's best desktop OS IMO, Win 2k. I bought that its first week in '99, and my copy is still running my mother's system. I stopped there and held fast.
There was no way in $*#& I was going to accept XP's requirement that I ask MS for permission to use my system after I legitimately paid for the OS, and again any time I exceeded its tolerance for hardware upgrades. "Please sir, may I have some more? By your grace of course, sir." And the restrictions upon the consumer have just grown more onerous since then. The king's subjects have become too used to kneeling.
I've been running Ubuntu Linux now for a year and a half. I thought I'd miss Windows, but I don't. Its going on my mothers system within the next month. Linux has finally reached the point where its actually preferable to Windows as a desktop OS for people of my expertise. Its not there for my mom yet, but its well within her capabilities if I walk her through it.
I know Linux doesn't have the market share, but aside from its variable affect on games, I don't see the effect.
I agree, Microsoft is not to be pitied, they have their dedicated customers. Apple is another option. I'm on a Linux machine home built myself.