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The linux kernel has been run on "big iron" for a long time now, it would be surprising if it weren't better prepared for scaling to 128+ cores.

linux/Documentation/vm/numa.rst states it was started in 1999, was windows going anywhere near NUMA architectures back then?

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Since windows was mostly running on x86 and the memory controllers were in the northbridge back then even multi-socket systems wouldn't have been affected by NUMA. Moving them on-die only happened later.

There were NUMA x86 rigs long before the memory controller moved to the CPU. IBM xSeries and serverworks chipsets from around 2000 had NUMA topologies.

Windows server 2003 had NUMA support. I am not sure that Server 2000 exposed any NUMA capability, but there were a lot of things cut from that project because it was running late. My guess is NUMA was one of the things that got pushed (in terms of release) to 2003.

They used to have a "Datacenter" SKU of the server where you'd find most of these kinds of features. This was only available with OEM hardware IIRC.

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