On top of this, the NT kernel is actually pretty decent A lot of people that where not in computing back then do not realize that Microsoft picked up a lot of

On top of this, the NT kernel is actually pretty decent A lot of people that where not in computing back then do not realize that Microsoft picked up a lot of great people due to market forces, they picked up a lot of talent from DEC including David Cutler and the cream of the crop from the OS2 team. This was the team that designed and built the original NT Kernel and it was by and large the best parts of VMS and OS2 coupled with those individuals learnings in building those other systems. I agree with you on the Win32 API and it is a shame that the NT Kernel gets dinged for it.