"The" Workplace Shell is OS/2's user interface. Born in OS/2 v2.0, it incorporated highly advanced technology for its time. It is also an object-oriented framework which allows expert programmers to re-use and modify its code.

The WPSs malleability is also its greatest weakness. Over time, depending on what is installed, it becomes unstable, leading to hangs and crashes, leaving the OS unusable.

The Workplace Shell is an excellent idea that looks pretty, but has an unstable technical base. The entire Workplace Shell object environment runs in a single process, and due to Microsoft's poor design of Presentation Manager. Fortunately, the Workplace Shell can be disabled, and the result is like using an xterm system.xinitrc.

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