Windows 1.0 may have been very short lived and had very little actual practical use, but it still marked the beginning of the dominance of Windows. In the early years of Windows development, Bill Gates was so bold as to claim that within a year, 90% of PCs would be running Windows. He certainly missed his target date, but the end result was almost dead-on accurate.
Launch difficulties of Windows delayed the actual introduction to market for a further two years after the initial announcement, and initial adoption of Windows was slow. It eventually however gained share, switched from being a front-end to being a full on operating system and today retains the position of the most popular OS in the world.