Apple had to learn the hard way: Under the DMA (thanks @EUCommission !) they were forced to give users a choice regarding the default search engine and browser on their systems.
What are we going to do about Microsoft misleading users?
It is still required, as Google had to do the same with Android, offering multiple search engines and presenting them to the user (at least that happened to me with my phone), but after doing it in Windows 8.1, Microsoft probably thought that it was enough compliance to keep "those nagging EU politicians" away.
I just found out that the agreement between Microsoft and the EU commission was only valid between 2009 and 2014. So MS is no longer obliged to make the change of the default browser easy.