Example of bad API designs by Microsoft that gets pushed into production is `GetPrivateProfileString`[0]. This function returns a single key value from an INI file. This function will 1) Open the file, 2) Search the file for the Key, 3) Close the file. A better design would be to abstract the file so it is only open and closed once versus how many key values must be read from an INI file. It is like reading one BYTE of an IC at a time instead of batching the process.

NTFS cannot even free master file table space. Creating a lot of small files make it expand and never shrink.

Windows does not properly handle STDIN and STDOUT. Because of DOS being an applications versus a SHELL a person must compile an application as a GUI or CMD flagged, that is also bad design because a command line application must be re-design and re-complied as a GUI to hide the DOS console from showing when it runs and brakes all STDIN and STDOUT logging methods.

Microsoft still does not have proper offline updating. For some reason they falsely believe that everyone connects their computer to the Internet. Lot of air-gap machines in the automation industry. Big reason to move product host OS to BSD or Linux.

It is not fun trying to fix a corrupt registry or WMI repository. Even Microsoft sent out a Windows update to stop auto-backup of the registry because their low-end Surface laptops didn't have the hard-drive space to store them.

[0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winbase/...

For those unaware, at the CVS Pharmacy if you walk in and buy so much as a pack of gum, you're likely to walk out with at least 3 feet of receipt. They use them to tack on ads and coupons.