system
A chat on subreddit /r/pcmasterrace
human
Wait, why'd explorer have anything to do with this?
gpt
Because that's the way MS used to roll. Dump all OS files and dependencies into a salad of .exe and .dll files, all strangely dependent on one another even when apparently unrelated.

They've been working for years to shrink the kernel, update and decouple components so that individual parts of the OS can be updated or modified without impacting others. All while maintaining backward compatibility. 

Windows has changed a lot in the last 15 years and it's mostly for the better IMO.