alt Hacker NewsWindows 3.0 becoming a hit was something unplanned by Microsoft originally - even the NT team was working with the assumption of using OS/2 API for applications. Win3.0 started out as skunkworks project initially hiding from management under smokescreen of just being one last release of "windows as application library" that some products (including 3rd party ones) were using
Here's a good anecdote about that: https://web.archive.org/web/20130806213426/http://blogs.msdn...
> I remember wandering over to the Windows group over in Building 3 to talk to Aaron Reynolds about something to do with the MS-DOS redirector (I was working on DOS Lan Manager at the time). I ran into David, and he called me into his office "Hey, look at what I've got working!".
> He showed me existing windows apps running in protected mode on the 286. UNMODIFIED Windows 1.0 applications running in protected mode. He then ran me around the rest of the group, and they showed me the other stuff they were working on. Ralph had written a new driver architecture called VxD. Aaron had done something astonishing (I'm not sure what). They had display drivers that could display 256 color bitmaps on the screen (the best OS/2 could do at the time was 16 colors).
> My jaw was dropping lower and lower as I moved from office to office. "Oh my goodness, you can't let Steve see this, he's going to pitch a fit" (those aren't quite the words I used, but this is a family blog). You see, at this time, Microsoft's systems division was 100% focused on OS/2 1.1. All of the efforts of the systems division were totally invested in OS/2 development. We had invested literally tens of millions of dollars on OS/2, because we knew that it was the future for Microsoft. OS/2 at the time just ran a single DOS application at a time, and it had only just recently gotten a GUI (in 1989). It didn't have support for many printers (only about 5, all made by IBM, and (I believe) the HP Laserjet).
> And here was this little skunkworks project in building three that was sitting on what was clearly the most explosive product Microsoft had ever produced. It was blindingly obvious, even at that early date - Windows 3.0 ran multiple DOS applications in virtual x86 machines. It ran Windows applications in protected mode, breaking the 640K memory barrier. It had a device driver model that allowed for development of true 32bit device drivers. It supported modern displays with color depths greater than had been available on PC operating systems. There was just no comparison between the two platforms - if they had to compete head-to-head, Windows 3.0 would win hands down.