Comment by linguae
5 hours ago
I feel the same way about Windows XP. Windows XP may have brought NT-based Windows to regular consumers, which is partly why there's nostalgia for XP, but for those who were already using NT-based Windows at the time, Windows XP wasn't that much better than its predecessor, Windows 2000.
To me, Windows 2000 was peak Windows. Windows XP introduced activation, which I find an annoying hindrance, and weird UI decisions in the form of the Fisher-Price Luna interface and the search dog. It was all downhill from there, though Windows 7 was solid and I greatly appreciate the introduction of WSL in Windows 10.
> for those who were already using NT-based Windows at the time,
Exactly! Well said.
It was shockingly better than Win98/ME but not if you were already running NT. Then, it was a step backwards.
The advantage XP had targeting consumers was that gaming peripheral makers were more interested in developing drivers for XP. Win2k itself was pretty stable but its hardware support was suboptimal and its DOS emulation needed some work.
Win2k was excellent if it did everything you needed from it, though. XP had some advantages (like better search capabilities) but most of them came later in the form of service packs.