content: You are correct. The term we used back then was "environment" to differentiate that it was not the core OS of the system. It was more than a shell or GUI however because it had an API and subsystems that enabled programs to interact tightly with the environment and even DOS underneath. Fun fact, Visual Basic creator Alan Cooper had tried to establish a VB predecessor project to be the shell scripting and UI interface for Windows 3.0 to allow for a visual automation of common tasks. Microsoft contracted him to expand on the project and instead created the broader visual programming tool that recently had its 25th birthday. The Windows environment, while not a true OS, shaped the future of desktop OSes in so many ways. Too bad we hit a plateau in innovation that just makes OSes, software and hardware marginally better than the last version. Sigh...I miss the old days of computing.