Windows as a software package would have never been affordable to individuals or local-level orgs in countries like India and Bangladesh (especially in the 2000’s) that are now powerhouses of IT. Same for many SE Asian, Eastern European, African and LatinoAmerican countries as well.
Had the OS been too difficult to pirate, educators and local institutions in these countries would have certainly shifted to Linux and the like. The fact that Windows could be pirated easily is the main factor that led to its ubiquity and allowed it to become a household name. Its rapid popularity in the '00s and early ‘10s cemented its status as the PC operating system. It is probably the same for Microsoft Office as well (it is still a part of many schools’ standard curricula).
The fact that Windows still remains pirateable to this day is perhaps intentional on Microsoft’s part.
Windows is largely successful because there was nothing else good enough for Intel to use back in the late 80s. They struck a partnership and it took off, indoctrinating people into the Windows way of life for decades to come. Most people hate new tech, it means that they have to learn something new that they’d rather not (akin to telling someone to write with the opposite hand than the one they’ve been using their entire lives), even if that thing is simple. Piracy just strengthened that already strong foothold that they had.
In most countries other than those in Western Europe, North America, Japan and China, computers arrived roughly a decade late. In fact PCs never ended up being used in the mainstream till the late 90’s/early '00s in India, a lot of options had matured by then.
Specifically talking about India, people started buying PCs when they first used it in offices or cyber cafes back in early 00s. And windows was the obvious best choice. Apart from that, the GUI was always very convenient for home use cases too.
“a lot of options” like what? You have OS X and Linux. OS X only runs on Apple hardware (not including Hackintoshes) and Linux is still seen as less desirable than Windows, because everyone and their grandmother has used Windows at some point in their lives. They’ve probably never even heard of Linux. If they’ve never heard of Linux, they’ve definitely never heard of BSD or Solaris.
By the 2000s Microsoft was the dominant force in computing, Apple was suffering and only regained its foothold in the market after Steve Jobs came back in 97,and it still took years to become popular. Apple was always seen as a premium product so of course it wouldn’t be popular in countries like India. The only way you can usually get Linux on a PC is to build it yourself and install it, or buy it from the very few manufacturers that actually sell a computer with it pre-installed. So what does that leave? Windows.
