(I anticipate a "your a idiot" post from Captain Obvious hisself, but the truth remains that the bases of the two technologies mentioned are still there!)
The basic design of the Windows OS is based on the micro kernel architecture designed by David Cutler:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler
But yes, there is still a “MS DOS” shell, but then there are many shells available to control basic functions of the OS.
"MS-DOS"? Hell, it's CP/M based!
We will know that Windows has finally at last cut loose from its CP/M roots at the point where it joins the rest of the world and starts using foward-slash '/' in the GUI for a directory separator. It's been available within the system calls since the beginning, because Microsoft was originally a UNIX company (does anyone else remember that far back?).
But to maintain compatibility with CP/M, which used forward-slash for options instead of hyphen, Microsoft decided that MS-DOS would use the backslash '\' for separating directories.
BTW, RockyMtnMan is right about the Win/NT kernel not being MS-DOS based. But no one except us nerds knows or cares about that. The users are the ones that buy the damn computers. And they see back-slashes to this day. For no good reason -- how many users still type command lines that require forward-slash switches? Except in MS-DOS mode?
I'm still waiting, Microsoft. When will you drop CP/M compatibility?
[fingers tapping]
[crickets]
The last Windows version to load on top of DOS was ME. Every version from NT through 7 runs on the NT kernel.