In 1988, Alan Cooper prepared to present his software project, Tripod, to Bill Gates at Microsoft headquarters. Cooper, a pioneer in selling desktop applications independently from hardware, had been working on Tripod, a shell construction set for Windows, after being inspired by Microsoft's dynamic-link libraries (DLLs) introduced during a technical conference. Although impressed by Windows' capabilities, Cooper noted its rudimentary graphical user interface compared to Apple's Macintosh. This perceived gap in the market motivated him to build a more sophisticated Windows shell. His project aimed to enhance interprocess communication and dynamic module loading, addressing the limitations he identified in Microsoft's operating system.