Well this was a surprise.
Yes, I knew people had made desktop shells for Windows 3.x, but I have never found one for 2.x. Until I stumbled upon this.
The challenge for writing a Macintosh-like shell for Windows of the time was memory. Yes, Windows 2.0 was designed to run in 640k RAM, which is more than the 128k-512k the Macintosh had to work with, but the fact remained that designing a shell that took up more memory than the MS-DOS Executive could render memory-hungry programs inoperable because of the lack of memory.
While it will still run in Windows 2.0 real mode, PubTech recommended using Windows 2.11 with XMS (eXpanded Memory Specification, for those who don't remember it) or Windows 2.11/386 with extended memory support.
I wonder what ever happened to the company, Publishing Technologies, as not much documentation is available.
There was a later version designed for Windows 3.x

These screenshots were taken using Windows 2.03. This is the File Organizer's splash screen.
An interesting note, to start up directly with the PubTech File Organizer, you must type "win file" at the command prompt. Might just be coincidental that the file manager in Windows 3.x is called "Winfile.exe".

The PFO works much like a Macintosh as best it can with the limitations of Windows 2.
There are drive icons on the desktop as well as a Garbage can. The icons for executable files, which previously were only shown when the program was minimized, are used as the icon for the program. Other file types get certain icons.
The desktop itself is not a folder, but can contain files until they are "put away", much like the Macintosh worked.
The menu bar appears at the top like a Macintosh, but because this is working from the Windows UI there is a title bar.
Something odd that is noticeable right away, is the fact that drive icons disappear when opened, rather than graying out like the Macintosh did.

Interesting to note that the applications menu can contain links to installed applications that you add to it, which can then be run by selecting them, sort of like the Win9x start menu. |