Apparently, Microsoft is working on Windows 11. This might be a cloud-based version of Windows that makes use of Onedrive and can automatically save your work in the cloud. You do not need a full installation of Windows if you are only doing word processing or database work, that could be done in the cloud or remoting into a server. I thought Windows 10 was the last version of Windows, but now there is the possibility of a Windows 11 in the works. I hope it gets a Windows 11 server product as well. With just the Powershell command line and this is all you need to install Active Directory and any other service you wish to use on Windows Server. The administrator does not need the GUI to set up DCPromo and Active Directory, the whole thing can be done with Powershell. To uninstall the server GUI in Windows Server and just use the basic Powershell console, use this command: Uninstall-windowsfeature server-GUI-shell –restart. This is a useful way to trim down Windows Server.
The truth is not everyone has enough legacy programs where they need absolutely everything Windows includes. Just having the libraries for programs they need would cut a significant amount of the footprint Windows currently As far as 10S goes it was never about cutting legacy, it was more about distribution, a centralized store is unironically better for normies and grandma. The thing about Microsoft Store is that it has legacy programs. Programs like Inkscape, Blender, iTunes have been on the store for years now and I can tell you they haven’t been rewritten just to be there. They have just been repackaged. Windows 10 was really an attempt at setting users against developers. If users didn’t want to pay to use a “legacy” program then some of them would have asked the developer to put it on the store. The developer upon spending 5 seconds looking up how to do that would have seen the desktop bridge or the newer MSIX packaging and realized it wouldn’t be difficult.
You may not agree with any of this but the fact is MS has never made a move to cut legacy permanently. They are just tired of the huge security hole with the way programs are traditionally installed and how heavy the OS is. The problem is that some programs may be granted administrator privileges and this may not be a good thing in the long run. A system like Fedora Linux with Selinux is much more secure in terms of access to memory in certain ways. Selinux will not let a program run if it tries to access memory in a way that would negatively affect the system. This provides much more security to a Linux desktop. NSA Selinux even has tools that you may install to troubleshoot why a program will not run and this allows a programmer to fix it. But it is very secure and reliable when set up properly. Windows 11 if it ever eventuates must have something like this. It would provide much more security, as long as the user is running a limited user account and not an administrator-level account. Running a limited user account in Windows can limit the damage caused by malware and make it easier to remove.