Repeating the same thing does not make it any less one-sided and misleading. In fact, Microsoft discouraged applications from putting anything into the the win

Repeating the same thing does not make it any less one-sided and misleading. In fact, Microsoft discouraged applications from putting anything into the the windows directory or the system directory from the middle 1990s onwards. * https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms997548.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms997548.aspx * https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110620-00/?p=10393 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110620-00/?p=... * https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120307-00/?p=8153 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20120307-00/?p=... And of course the windows directory being a subtree with everything that is part of the operating system, is exactly the same model that people have been adopting with the "/usr merge" from AT&T Unix System 5 Release 4 onwards, and only a "landfill" if one thinks having the operating system in its own single subtree off the root is a "ghastly" idea. The range of operating systems that have done this very thing over the years, with the likes of C:\DRDOS, C:\WINDOWS, C:\OS2, /System, /boot/system, and /usr, are really not for you in that case. By the way, your description of priorities with / overriding /usr overriding /usr/local was as misleading as your idea about interference rather than the far more mundane and ordinary having a second disc. In fact, on systemd operating systems the default path is to search in the order /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin which is the opposite order to your description. FreeBSD nowadays uses a similar order, with _PATH_DEFPATH being /usr/bin:/bin , although _PATH_STDPATH is /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin . OpenBSD goes with /usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin for both. The misleadingly simplistic and wrongly ordered /, /usr, /usr/local wasn't even the historical case, moreover. Back in the 1980s people had the likes of /usr/ucb, /usr/lbin, /usr/bin, /usr/5bin, and sometimes even /etc and /usr/etc on the search path. There were actually quite a lot of these. AT&T Unix System 5 Release 4 had them all under /usr in 1988.