Which bit of Windows do you feel is DOS-like? Did you ever use DOS? The DOS underbelly of Windows disappeared with the release of Windows XP over a decade ago. Windows 95 and 98 were DOS-based, or at least had DOS underpinnings to some extent I think.
From an API point of view, the Win32 API is incredibly stable and reliable and allows the ability to run programs from decades ago. This contrasts sharply with Linux, where the APIs are in a constant state of irritating flux. From a serious development perspective, this might be why the commercial application market has flourished under Windows and why you see commercial Linux applications few and far between, and (usually?) treated as a side attempt before falling by the wayside (as it appears that few Linux users will pass over cash for an application).
I do not install mingw or cygwin or any other "Linux-land" compilers/systems on Windows because it feels like I'm using the wrong system - just install Linux if I want all that!
It would be better to just use native Visual Studio in Windows-land and keep everything separate, no? Ordinary users that I am writing software for will typically have the Visual-C++ runtimes already installed so bundling of different GNU DLLs is redundant.
We are now starting a large Python/Django project. All of our software development to date save iOS has been done on Windows machines. It is quickly becoming a PITA to develop these kinds of projects on a non-unix platform. Serioulsly considering switching everyone to Mac Pro's despite cost (10 to 12 seats). Yes, there are work-arounds. Not sure they solve the problem. More than willing to listen to suggestions.
I would switch to the Mac Pro, even an older tower one. They still have bonkers performance (it's my main development machine for native C++ and Windows development in a VM). But you don't feel like you're fighting with the system to do "unix" things like you do on Windows, and it doesn't feel like you're trying to fit a peg into a square hole, which shoving all GNU tools etc. onto Windows certainly feels like to me.
Or I suppose you could go with Linux and fight the shifting desktop sands? (That's why I got fed up with it and switched mainly to Mac OSX; despite the OSX changes, they're gradual and not insisting that we drop the dock or window behaviour etc.)
From an API point of view, the Win32 API is incredibly stable and reliable and allows the ability to run programs from decades ago. This contrasts sharply with Linux, where the APIs are in a constant state of irritating flux. From a serious development perspective, this might be why the commercial application market has flourished under Windows and why you see commercial Linux applications few and far between, and (usually?) treated as a side attempt before falling by the wayside (as it appears that few Linux users will pass over cash for an application).
I would believe it is a naive approach to ask that Windows be "built on top of Linux". They are architecturally different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT
I do not install mingw or cygwin or any other "Linux-land" compilers/systems on Windows because it feels like I'm using the wrong system - just install Linux if I want all that! It would be better to just use native Visual Studio in Windows-land and keep everything separate, no? Ordinary users that I am writing software for will typically have the Visual-C++ runtimes already installed so bundling of different GNU DLLs is redundant.