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Re:Ex-Caldera dev describes lost “WinBolt” Win9x-capable ver... by jchw on Monday August 30, 2021 @06:56PM (#28361917)
Windows 9x actually does use MS-DOS for more than just a bootloader. The post describes it in better detail than I actually understand, but they do also briefly list the advantages in the second line of the post from the link, too:

> Yes, it is possible to run Windows 9x ontop of DR-DOS. And yes, it has several advantages over using MS-DOS (f.e. smaller memory footprint and much more advanced relocation methods, not only resulting in more free DOS memory, but also in more free Windows resources; better configurability and therefore higher flexibility, more advanced utilities).

Re:Ex-Caldera dev describes lost “WinBolt” Win9x-capable ver... by zinekeller on Monday August 30, 2021 @07:54PM (#28362380)
While the merits of combining DOS and Windows is economically debatable, the memory layout of 95 is really well-thought out and DR really didn't realise that certain programs would just "slide" out of their allocated memory range even theoretically no programs should do that (there is already a warning in beta versions that has tighter memory layouts, and DR conveniently forgot how changing the DPMI implementation, even though it should just work, actually isn't). Microsoft is simply trying to minimise problematic applications at the expense of memory consumption.