In the time since that VC++ has switched to a frozen ABI model that’s much closer to what Linux distros have. Each version of VC++ being ABI-incompatible and requiring each application to be built with a single version and ship its c++ runtime had some significant pros and cons.

Microsoft never said it outright, but I’ve always assumed the major con that made them switch was that people didn’t buy new Visual Studio versions because upgrading VS required also upgrading all of your binary blob closed-source dependencies.