You think "rapidly changing apis" is "right from microsoft's playbook"? Microsoft has been known to abandon a platform (VB6 being the prime example), but they

You think "rapidly changing apis" is "right from microsoft's playbook"? Microsoft has been known to abandon a platform (VB6 being the prime example), but they have also put tremendous effort into preserving compatibility in their APIs. So while they may have introduced new APIs over time, they've also shouldered the massive burden of keeping the old way working for many years. I would even say they realised this was a vital component in maintaining their dominance: the sheer number of applications that work on Windows.