Windows may have looked like something to squeeze until the last drop, but customers are clearly voting with their feet. And Microsoft knows it. Plus the realization that if Windows falls, Microsoft falls has been haunting them lately.
I mean, Windows has effectively four different UIs in it, al from different eras, from Win95, to Vista to Windows Mobile to Windows 11. Any "normal" company would've been lambasted for it, but Microsoft knows it can get away with it.
If improving Windows' image doesn't work I bet they'll resort to underhanded tricks to trip up their competitors. I mean it's in the DNA of the company. From Bill Gates' sale of PC-DOS, to the backstabbing of IBM with Windows to the blocking of Corel Linux from taking hold on the desktop. I'm betting they'll use a proxy company to buy-out Linux Mint or its main developer, Clément Lefèbvre ("Here's $100 million, now take a walk.").
I don't see how Microsoft buying out Linux Mint would change anything. Linux Mint is just a configuration skin on top of Ubuntu/Debian and is fully open source. If Microsoft bought out the debeloper someone else can just take the code that exists currently and create "Linux Hibiscus" and people can just swap over by changing one repo config file.