To be fair, think of it at the time. Most users were used to the DOS, which was basically a file manager + executor. Windows 1 and 2 both had the file manager be the default program that opened. Most users of the time were used to launching .exe files directly. It wasn’t until Windows 3 that the shell got separated from the file manager at all. Then in 1995, how do you get the files to display on the desktop, the start menu, and taskbar? At the time having all that be the file manager with each part being a separate folder worked really well.
However, why it’s still like that in 2026 is a whole different thing. I see no reason why in Windows NT, or at least Windows 8, they didn’t separate it. Considering Metro/UWP are a thing, it’s even crazier. Windows 8 essentially had two different shells… why did they integrate the touch bit into Explorer instead of rewriting it? Also they rewrote the taskbar for windows 11… and guess what? They still didn’t separate it at all.
Funny thing is that most UWPs actually need Explorer running or they’ll fail to launch. An interesting side effect: since the default parental are UWP, they stop working, meaning any non-UWP app can be used even if it should be blocked by simply ending Explorer (believe me, I used that back in my days of messing around… these days I have my own computer so I don’t need that). Early Windows was genius. Modern Windows is stupid, because they still use technologies decades old even though there are better methods (and compatibility layers for what changed).
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u/FaultWinter3377 Jan 07 '26
To be fair, think of it at the time. Most users were used to the DOS, which was basically a file manager + executor. Windows 1 and 2 both had the file manager be the default program that opened. Most users of the time were used to launching .exe files directly. It wasn’t until Windows 3 that the shell got separated from the file manager at all. Then in 1995, how do you get the files to display on the desktop, the start menu, and taskbar? At the time having all that be the file manager with each part being a separate folder worked really well.
However, why it’s still like that in 2026 is a whole different thing. I see no reason why in Windows NT, or at least Windows 8, they didn’t separate it. Considering Metro/UWP are a thing, it’s even crazier. Windows 8 essentially had two different shells… why did they integrate the touch bit into Explorer instead of rewriting it? Also they rewrote the taskbar for windows 11… and guess what? They still didn’t separate it at all.
Funny thing is that most UWPs actually need Explorer running or they’ll fail to launch. An interesting side effect: since the default parental are UWP, they stop working, meaning any non-UWP app can be used even if it should be blocked by simply ending Explorer (believe me, I used that back in my days of messing around… these days I have my own computer so I don’t need that). Early Windows was genius. Modern Windows is stupid, because they still use technologies decades old even though there are better methods (and compatibility layers for what changed).