Ironically, XP had issues with running legacy software back in the day, as it was the first NT-based OS targeted on desktop computers.
In the mainstream home computing sense, yes. But it wasn't the first NT-based OS to target desktop computers. Windows 2000 had a few desktop releases and was even available pre-installed in some high street computer stores. Also NT4 did have a "Workstation" release specifically for desktop computers albeit that was aimed at businesses.
Prior to NT4 I don't think there were separate desktop/server releases of NT but it did have enough software to run as a desktop if one wished. Though I think those people might have preferred OS/2 or Windows 3.1 instead (or a non-IBM PC; because there were plenty of options back then)
There may have been a few binaries on the AS install media that were harder to come by, but in general the editions were licensing segments and not really different products.