I use WTL with modern C++ (smart pointers, Microsoft WIL for scoped handles is a good point) for suitable Windows native apps. Yes, this seems to be old but it’s the only thing that fits my mental model as a 30 year old Windows programmer as you.
Innovation at the expense of crushing workers and increasing the gap between parasitic management compensation and worker wages. No, thanks. Europe may need reform but it’s not the USA way of doing things, except for the elite for which “ the economist “ is a already known and tired sockpuppet.
Originally, Windows NT 3.x was more "microkernelithic" as graphics and printer drivers where isolated. NT 4 moved them to Kernel mode to speedup the system.
Windows NT 3.x had graphics and printer drivers in user-mode for stability reasons. Windows NT 4 moved them to Ring 0 to speed-up graphics applications.
I remember looking at MSDOS binaries with hex editors and seeing "MS Runtime Library", like many tools were written in C -- may be my memory is completely failing ... but probably MSDOS 5.0 included many utilities written in C? I used 5.0 with a 386, circa '93.
If you are already at systems level programming field (C/C++) you can tackle on Rust, which is becoming more and more popular (Linux Kernel, Microsoft in the future, etc)