Alas. This article is incomplete. I would be loathe to call the original api from 1985 win32. The original api was 16-bit. This was originally the windows api and later called win16. The 32-bit api came later with Windows NT. I’d also think to mention win32s which allowed some 32 but apps to run in 16 bit windows and win64 which is the 64 bit edition if of the api that you can still write applications against with the SDK. I fact you can write assembly code to write a very tiny app against the windows API since the API is what does the heavy lifting. I’d also note that MFC originally shipped as a 16 bit lib.
Also. Notably missing. the windows template lib (WTL) from the COM era.
lol. Many of these are alive or will at least still run on windows. About the only dead one is silver light. As its browser runtime is no longer available.
Still, its pretty nice overview. I didnt know that there are so many (failed? haha) APIs for Windows. I myself used only Win32 and MFC. Actually, I still ocasionally use Win32 API to write simple things like this one:
Also. Notably missing. the windows template lib (WTL) from the COM era.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_API https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Win32s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Foundation_Class_Lib...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_API https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Win32s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Template_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Template_Library
http://borg.uu3.net/~borg/?quickrun