> It's easy to forget when Windows was the shell, not the OS, and that it was simpler and easier on the system to boot to a minimal state and allow the user to

> It's easy to forget when Windows was the shell, not the OS, and that it was simpler and easier on the system to boot to a minimal state and allow the user to escalate from there. i don't think it was designed that way, but rather was a function of the way it evolved. i don't miss the days of windows on top of dos on personal computers, other than perhaps the puzzles that came with installing new hardware or software. freezes and crashes were a fact of daily life and the device driver situation was insane. and no, it didn't need to be that way. reliable computers did exist at the time. although, to be fair, the pc compatible as an open ecosystem of hardware and software vendors was a whole new model.