This ignores all the new UWP API's which are the basis for modern Windows applications and will work on all future versions of windows. C++ is the preferred language here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/cpp-and-winrt-a...

Only the classical API.

Since Vista, the plan has been doing in COM what was thought out for Longhorn with .NET.

As such, all new APIs introduced since Vista are mostly COM libraries, and now UWP, which is an improved version of COM, after its hard rebirth with WinRT and UA.