Windows 95 and NT 4 didn't even ship with Active Desktop-- it (along with IE integration into Windows Explorer) was added as part of the Windows Desktop Update

Windows 95 and NT 4 didn't even ship with Active Desktop-- it (along with IE integration into Windows Explorer) was added as part of the Windows Desktop Update that shipped with IE4, and didn't become part of the OS out of the box until Windows 98 (and 2000 on the NT series). GDI in the kernel (win32k.sys) was a performance optimization.