In Winapi land, the equivalent of "the c library" is NTDLL,its wrappers and other supporting libs (advapi32,userenv,etc... and Win32 specific libs which I consider equivalent to X11 libs). MSVCR in my opinion is there to provide the stdlib for C/C++ programs. In Linux land, the library that provides the C stdlib also wraps syscalls, in Windows, the C stdlib is a wrapper/interface for Windows api's.
My opinion is that they're both great. I really like how clean and well thought out the Windows API's are. Compared to Linux equivalents they're very stable and easier to use. But that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with C stdlib implementation on either OS. But for system API's, Linux is a bit messy, that mess is the result of having so many people have strong opinions, and Linux trying to adhere to the Unix principle of a modular user-space ecosystem.
For example, there is no "Linux graphics api", there is X11 and Wayland and who knows what else, and neither have anything to do with the Linux project. There are many highly opinionated ways to do simple things, and that is how Linux should be. In the same vein, installing apps on Linux is simply querying your package manager, but on Windows there is no "Microsoft package repo" where everyone dumps their apps (although they are trying to fix that in many ways), and that's how Windows should be.
Let Linux be Linux and Windows be Windows. They're both great if you appreciate them for what they are and use the accordingly.
Microsoft has always been end-user-hostile. You hack around it :)
Reverse-engineer it's undesirable behavior, mitigate it. The real stuff that scares me is hardware-based (secure enclave computing for example) and legal measures it is taking to prevent us from hacking it.
ReactOS exists, as does Wine. Linux is a purely monolithic Kernel, unlike NT which is a hybrid that has the concept of subsystems built into it. Linux would have to have the concept of subsystems and have an NT-interop layer (probably based off of Wine), the advantage over Wine I fail to see.
In the end, where is the demand coming from I ask? Not from Linux devs in my opinion. I suppose a Wine focused distro might please folks like you, but Wine itself has lots of bugs and errors even after all these years. I doubt it is keeping up with all the Windows11 changes even, what the author proposes, in my opinion is not practical, at least not if you are expecting an experience better than ReactOS or Wine. If it is just Win32/winapi interop layer, it might be possible, but devs would need to demand it, otherwise who will use it?
Linux users are the most "set in their way" from my experience, try convincing any Linux dev to stop using gtk/qt and write apps for "this new Windows like api interface to create graphical apps".
but ultimately, there is no harm in trying other than wasted time and resources. I too would like to see an ecosystem that learns and imitates windows in many ways (especially security measures).
>There are many highly opinionated ways to do simple things, and that is how Linux should be
I still believe we would be in a better place had BSD was ready for adoption before Linux. Linux is a kernel and a wide family of operating systems assembled from the kernel and different bits and pieces while BSD tried to be a very coherent operating system from the start.
My opinion is that they're both great. I really like how clean and well thought out the Windows API's are. Compared to Linux equivalents they're very stable and easier to use. But that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with C stdlib implementation on either OS. But for system API's, Linux is a bit messy, that mess is the result of having so many people have strong opinions, and Linux trying to adhere to the Unix principle of a modular user-space ecosystem.
For example, there is no "Linux graphics api", there is X11 and Wayland and who knows what else, and neither have anything to do with the Linux project. There are many highly opinionated ways to do simple things, and that is how Linux should be. In the same vein, installing apps on Linux is simply querying your package manager, but on Windows there is no "Microsoft package repo" where everyone dumps their apps (although they are trying to fix that in many ways), and that's how Windows should be.
Let Linux be Linux and Windows be Windows. They're both great if you appreciate them for what they are and use the accordingly.