I have been in Home Depot very recently and have seen their CRT monitors and dot matrix printers on their counters. I’m pretty sure they were not investing much to keep current. I’m not a computer guy but they are not even in the last decade with their hardware so maybe their software isn’t the main culprit.
I don’t know why “senior executives” need data access to financial databases (point of sales, not sales figures).
I prefer Lowes but last time I shopped at HD, which was several years ago, the special ordering was done on an HPUX system.
I seriously doubt MS will do much. Security, or lack there of, has been a known problem for many many years. Its spawned an entire industry to mitigate it. MS, however, has put little more than lip service into correcting it at the source.