Windows was great at running word processors. BSD and Linux were great as internet scale servers. It was until Microsoft tried running Hotmail on NT that they had any idea there was a problem. Microsoft used this experience to fix problms that ultimately made Windows better for all users across many use cases.
All the talk here about how Windows had a better architecture into he beginning conveniently avoids the fact that windows was well known for being over-designed while delivering much less than its counterparts in the networking arena for a long time.
Its not wrong to admire what windows got right, but Unix got so much right by putting attention where it was needed.