Microsoft has been trying to solve the same UX problem since 1997: how to surface live information without making you launch an app. They've shipped six different implementations across nearly 30 years. Each one died from a different fundamental flaw - performance, security, screen space, privacy, engagement. And each death triggered the same reflex: containment.
The pattern goes like this. Microsoft releases widgets into the wild. Users or attackers find the breaking point. Microsoft panics, kills the feature, and ships the next version locked inside a tighter box. Active Desktop splashed HTML across the wallpaper - performance collapsed, so Vista contained widgets in a rigid sidebar. Users hated losing screen space, so Windows 7 freed gadgets to float anywhere - then a security exploit blew the whole platform apart. Windows 8 responded by locking widgets into a full-screen Start Screen nobody wanted. The cycle repeats: build, ship, backlash, kill, rebuild with more walls.
Understanding why each containment failed tells you exactly what constraints shape the platform you'd build on today. Every design decision in the current architecture - the declarative Adaptive Cards format, the native WinUI 3 renderer, the overlay-instead-of-dock layout - exists because of a specific past disaster. The constraints you'll hit when building widgets today aren't arbitrary. They're scar tissue.