There was existing precedent for a tiny version of Windows that is barely enough to run a single program. The original Windows version of Microsoft Excel came with a runtime version of Windows 2.1, so that customers who didn’t have Windows could still use Excel.

Fun fact, the “DOS” version of AOL did the same thing but with GEOS. Pretty impressive that it all fit on one 1.44MB floppy.

Yeah, that was a pretty neat thing. I remember looking through the .cab files from the Windows 95 installation disks and seeing files that didn't belong in Windows 95 itself. There was even a version of the "Cardfile" utility, a simplistic data organizer that was part of Windows 3.x, but not 95.

I feel like software engineering back in the days was more badass.

That's pretty cool