Microsoft admits Windows 11 is still built on 90s-era Win32, and no one saw it coming

Microsoft's Chief Technology Officer of Azure, Mark Russinovich, acknowledges that Windows 11 still heavily relies on the 30-year-old Win32 API, a surprise given the company's history of attempting to replace it. Despite numerous efforts to modernize Windows apps with frameworks like MFC, WinForms, WPF, and UWP, developers have continued to prefer Win32 due to its robustness and ecosystem. Microsoft is now shifting focus to WinUI 3, a native UI framework under the Windows App SDK umbrella, to create modern, efficient applications while retaining access to Win32. This move aims to address performance issues caused by the proliferation of web apps like WebView2 and Electron on Windows 11.