[mananaysiempre]

> Before Microsoft decided that every single version of its C compiler should use a different C runtime (and much later they changed their mind again).

It is... not as simple as that[1]. MSVCRT itself is the fifth version of a Win32 C runtime, after CRTDLL (used to ship with the OS but no longer), MSVCRT10, MSVCRT20, and MSVCRT40. It’s just that both the toolchains linking with MSVCRT and the OSes shipping it (and nothing newer) endured for a very long time while Microsoft went on a collective .NET piligrimage.

Of course, “NT OS/2” started the same year ANSI C was ratified (and Win32 only a couple of years later), so some degree of flailing around was inevitable. But the MSVCRT Garden of Eden story is not true.

[1] http://www.malsmith.net/blog/visual-c-visual-history/