"[Unix permissions] were much better than what was available in Windows for the longest time"? Try DOS. Windows 1.0 - Me were never multi-user operating systems

"[Unix permissions] were much better than what was available in Windows for the longest time"? Try DOS. Windows 1.0 - Me were never multi-user operating systems, which was largely the purpose of having permissions, until the world realised just what a mistake it is to have full, unguarded permission to your system files. MS's first multi-user OS was Windows NT in 1993, which shipped with ACLs.