Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's what happens when your root is in enterprise software or at least some of your heritage is in enterprise. I have no great love for MSFT but I agree with you about their willingness to support things well past their expected expiration. IIRC they even went so far as to detect programs that used some "bugs" in earlier versions of Windows and emulated those same buggy behaviors just for those programs.
Too lazy to look but I believe someone in a vm went from windows 1.0 to windows 7 (with all upgrades in between) and some of their personalization options from 1.0 (or maybe 3.11) were still present in 7. Insane!
There are also timelapses for those not into having a multi-hour windows nostalgia marathon.