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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

But Xenix does not run DOS or Windows programs like OS/2 does. Microsoft needed the backwards compatibility to be able to sell the next DOS. When Microsoft split from IBM for OS/2 Microsoft's OS/2 NT 3.0 became Microsoft Windows NT 3.1

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There was also that XEDOS, that never officially saw the light of day. But some of those feature apparently made it into MS-DOS 2.x and appear as those *nix-like features that DOS had from 2.0+.

https://youtu.be/Vo8NG8T4rWs

> There was also that XEDOS, that never officially saw the light of day

I wonder if XEDOS ever existed as actual code, as opposed to simply an item in a roadmap.

When Microsoft first released Xenix, DOS wasn't a thing and GUIs were only available in rich research labs. Not being compatible with PC-DOS was not really an issue.

As the IBM PC became Microsoft's passport to success, they ditched the Unixness of Xenix and embraced the CP/M-ness of PC-DOS. That's why people do dir in Windows instead of ls.