You mean like how absolutely no hardware runs under Linux. Oh, wait. Somehow the hardware in my sig runs just fine on Linux. According to you that would be impossible.Yes, because with the replacement of the kernel, the drivers would have to be rebuilt from the ground up. That means all that old hardware will not work anymore and therefore, the comparison is spot on.
Edit: Oh, and the paid software companies would ONLY develop new versions, that users would have to pay for the new software. The fact is, Microsoft is not known for their sticking with something that is outside of the norm and also, backwards compatibility may blow up.
Edit 2: Basically, if it does not make the hardware and software developers money, they are not going to do it. Can you just imagine all the bitching that would happen here, alone, because their hardware and software does not work anymore?
What does having to pay for new software have to do with anything? You have to pay for new versions on Windows now. How would that change anything? Current software would likely be easy enough to port over to Linux for most things. Quite a bit of older software already can work under Linux with Wine. And to make Wine compatibility leaps and bounds better would only require some help from MS as well as MS allowing Wine to use the actual MS APIs and libraries instead of reverse engineering everything and making sure it works different enough from MS's actual IP so they don't get sued or required to remove it.
What is this crap about hardware and software developers? They're going to put their software and hardware on whatever platform is going to make them money. Guess what, hardware and software developers aren't going to say fuck it and shut down their businesses if MS stopped using the NT kernel. Every single thing you've said here is absolutely absurd.
There's no point in MS not using the standard kernel. Rolling their own proprietary kernel would defeat the purpose of swapping in the first place because MS would be required to put a ton of time, effort and money into it. The only real difference would be in whatever desktop environment MS would create and how their own software and APIs would integrate.It wouldn't be Linux either, at least a traditional Linux desktop. Android uses the Linux kernel but I wouldn't call Android a traditional Linux distro. Microsoft would create a very custom kernel for Windows that wouldn't be compatible with any Linux distro.
If done right, Microsoft wouldn't worry about drivers anymore as the Linux kernel would handle those things. I doubt Microsoft would handle it the same as Ubuntu or Arch would but I'm sure they'd take advantage of the vast supported hardware that exists in the Linux kernel.
MS wouldn't have to worry about drivers at all. All hardware manufacturers would have to write and submit their drivers to the Linux kernel or try to go the proprietary route like nVidia does. MS would be completely out of the driver game which has to be a huge cost savings. Axing the WHQL program alone would have to free up a ton of resources not to mention remove MS from blame for driver problems. No longer having to deal with the driver situation alone should be enough to push MS into abandoning the NT kernel for Linux.