Cruft and legacy support. Windows machines are generally expected to run anything from the DOS era to modern day without a hitch. Windows APIs, up until the .NE

Cruft and legacy support. Windows machines are generally expected to run anything from the DOS era to modern day without a hitch. Windows APIs, up until the .NET era, were very leaky abstractions that require a lot of legwork to properly sandbox. Unix systems, on the other hand, have infrastructure for recompiling and reconfiguring applications for new architectures with very little effort from the end user.