I suggest you re-read the link you posted, it was not Windows-specific. Though I definitely think the guy is crazy if he thinks that anyone would be game for having yet another useless tax.
Also, why should Windows have to do stuff by default that nobody else does? Running any *nix does NOT make you safe from malware/viruses/spyware, only safe from stuff made to run on Windows. Sure, there's a lot more of that stuff in the wild for Windows, but that's no excuse for not plugging the gaping security holes in many Linux distros. Ignorance is not a good security policy, especially when a lot of exploit code for *nix machines, and the software that runs on them, is usually a simple Google away. Heck, point out to me any *nix software that is similar to Defender that comes packaged with the OS.
Who cares if XP is broken anyways, it's almost a decade old, most *nix users don't use 10 year old versions of their preferred distro unless it's for very specific reasons. Find a better argument, please. Honestly, Microsoft should've dropped XP support the moment Vista came out anyways, it takes 2 braincells to properly migrate from XP to Vista or 7 problem-free, and if people can't be bothered to do post-install config so they can complain about incompatibilities, that's their problem, not Microsoft's.
Please, try to look at both sides of the issue instead of taking the "M$ 15 3V1L 50 U53 L1NUX" approach.