There is no such thing as canonical “win32 widgets.” There have always been several different UI libraries even for win32. The original win32 styling you get with CreateWindow doesn’t support modern font rendering, high DPI, doesn’t work well with touch, is only software rendering, doesn’t support latest accessibility features, etc.
The newer stuff sits on top of DirectX.
The latest UI framework (XAML/WinUI) sits on top of a better rendering architecture (compositor) that itself wraps DirectX tech.
The newer stuff sits on top of DirectX.
The latest UI framework (XAML/WinUI) sits on top of a better rendering architecture (compositor) that itself wraps DirectX tech.