[cosmotriton]

Um... Without Win32 there is no WinRT (do you think Windows isn't Windows anymore because of the advent of a new touch-first user experience and app model (with a centralized app store with simple and predictable app install/uninstall/update mechanics)?)

Without Win32 there is no Windows shell, touch first or not... There is no Visual Studio, Office, Photoshop, Premiere, etc, etc... You can have something new, different and still have what has always been there. This is what compatibility is all about... Can you run Windows 7 (and Windows XP) applications on Windows 8? Yes, of course you can.

Don't mistake the things you can't do in the WinRT environment (Win32 APIs you can't call, for example) with the end of those things (and what they are a part of)... MFC shipped a new version in 2012. WPF is at version 4.5. ATL is just a "high" level way to program COM just like WinRT, in fact... You don't need ATL any time you program to a COM-based ABI. You don't need WPF to build XAML-based WinRT apps. On x86 machines, there is a desktop for a reason and the reason is the same as it's always been.