Comment Re:Well duh (Score 1) 182
That it could put files wherever it wanted
They could have implemented VirtualStore as early as Windows 95 as a stop-gap measure for write-anywhere programs. Sure, it's an approach with its own problems, but sometimes you have to trade something in for security.
low-level hardware access for sound, graphics, etc
Trap the hardware interrupts in software, then emulate the low-level I/O routines at the OS level. Possibly with a performance penalty, but again: you have to decide where your priorities are.
And yes, I know hindsight is 20/20. Maybe not all these things were obvious back then. I still think that, security-wise, Microsoft spent the whole 90s and a good part of the 00s asleep at the wheel.