Well yes, clearly. That's why I used past tense rather than saying "still uses" and why I didn't mention NT nor CE (I also didn't mention Microsoft BASIC nor Xe

Well yes, clearly. That's why I used past tense rather than saying "still uses" and why I didn't mention NT nor CE (I also didn't mention Microsoft BASIC nor Xenix - just so you know they didn't use DOS as a bootloader either :P). I figured the context was obvious given the audience of HN, but clearly not. Anyhow, my point was just to reinforce the GP's point that it's ok to think about DOS as a bootloader because Microsoft have done exactly this themselves.