I have zero hope, but he MIGHT have the ear of the people making the decisions and he might make a good point how if all of the "family tech support" people get pissed off about account requirements and move to Linux ... they'll start suggesting that to their families too which is kinda bad in the long run.

Even though it's been said many times that MS doesn't give a fuck about personal users, their money comes almost 100% from companies using Windows. Gaming computers etc. are a rounding error.