I don't understand why people like XP so much. Windows 2000 was the ultimate OS: lean, fast, focused, and absolutely zero crapware installed. No stupid internet accounts needed to run your local OS and it did what it was supposed to do.
By comparison, you’d be hard pressed to find a non-enthusiast who really remembers the differences between 95/98/ME/2000 because they largely looked similar.
Unlike 2000, it was also aimed at home use. The prior home use system was ME which was also not very well received at the time. XP unified the business and home segments.
Add to that, the immense PR failure that was Vista, and a very long life for XP, it’s not surprising that it has the most fondness in people’s psyche.
That was a feature, for me it was 95, 98, NT4, Windows 2000 then it all started falling apart and Linux and MacOSX because the more attractive alternatives.
For those who don't remember, we used to call the Windows XP UI the "Fisher Price" UI. It was the first dumbed down Windows UI.
I'd agree, the nostalgia for Windows XP is misplaced, when the version before that was the more attractive option. Overall the quality of Windows 2000 just felt like it was way above Windows XP. All the Windows UI inconsistencies started showing up in Windows XP.
In the "Windows XP 2024" video I think it's interesting that that the two worst features, the Windows XP UI and the online account activation, have both been preserved.
Windows 2000 was the last of the separate business targeted operating systems.
Therefore I’d argue the nostalgia isn’t misplaced because most people under 45 just couldn’t have the nostalgia for 2000 to begin with.
XP unified the two lines into one OS with multiple SKUs instead of completely different kernels.
That's probably a fair observation. Windows 2000 came out before Windows ME, so it you had just a slight interest in computers, you'd try it out and after that Windows 98 and even ME felt like a downgrade, so you'd stay on 2000. I remember getting an beta release of Windows 2000 in late December 1999 and that was basically it, every other version of Windows since then, even XP was a downgrade.
XP was the first Windows that had BOTH support for all “home windows” APIs AND the multi-user NT kernel (windows 95/98/me didn’t truly have a concept of user ownership of files outside the context of network file shares, for example)
I don't dispute that Microsoft used DirectX support to push XP sales, but I played at least Quake and Half-Life on NT4, and Unreal Tournament and StarCraft on W2k.
So you’d REALLY have to be into the OS scene to look it up, or care enough to buy it.
No, for music Napster was really what showed what the internet could offer but CD burners couldn't.
At the time, the way operating systems were advertised was in trade/enthusiast publications or the occasional tech article within a news publication or campaigns within stores. There weren’t prompts in the OS to upgrade, and most people didn’t think about their OS beyond what came factory installed. Each of the above required people to go out of their way to even know new OS versions were out unless they were enthusiasts.
Yeaah, we didn't necessarily pay back then.
Being from that era of IE 5.5 and 6 I still don't understand how a person could ever trust Micro$oft, or use their tooling with anything but reluctance, their corporate culture hasn't changed a bit as far as I can tell. The poster child for mundane corporatist evil.
Meanwhile, Windows 2000 predates consumer Wifi, so there's no UI in the operating system for connecting to networks.
I've always called it Windows Duplo. :)
> It was the first dumbed down Windows UI.
Only if you ignore Windows ME.
UI/UX-wise, Windows 2000 was the best version of Windows to date. The UI was largely unified, W2k widgets were an incremental improvement in look AND FUNCTIONALITY over NT. Keyboard navigation was lightyears ahead of any version prior or post.
2000 isn't remembered as much as XP because it was never marketed to end-users but as an upgrade to NT4 and a workstation os. Home computers at the time came pre-installed with Windows Me, that was barely usable. When XP came out, it was so much better than Me that people loved it fondly, but in fact it was mostly Windows 2000 with a shitty Telletubbies theme.
1. Windows 2000 was visually like the 9x series. XP introduced a whole new and very memorable look, subjective opinions aside. Even if you used Windows 2000 in your workplace, it was visually non-distinct from the Windows 98 you’d have at home.
2. Windows 2000 was for business use. Windows XP unified the segments.
The story goes that they wanted to launch with Windows 2000 Home just like they did with XP, but ran into some issues and decided at the last minute to ship a pimped up version of Windows 98. That was absolutely terrible.
That's more or less false. Releasing 2000 for home usage was planned, but it was realized early on that there's not enough time for that. It's not possible to develop on a short notice, ME contained some notable improvements (mostly ports from 2000).
(emphasis mine)
IIRC, there were two separate lineages of Windows. There was the "home" lineage which went 3.1, 95, 98, ME, XP, and the "business" lineage which went NT 3.1, NT 4, 2000, XP; for those using Windows in the home context, it's likely they jumped from 9x to XP (possibly with a stop at ME in between, but IIRC Windows ME was somewhat disliked).
Most people under 45 wouldn’t have experienced 2000 for that reason.
then after XP came Vista which suffered from security pop up fatigue. and bad drivers. 7 was stable but microsoft had learned their lesson had tried to cut its life cycle short (not releasing service packs pushing os updates etc...) rather than let it it go one for decades like XP costing them licenses revenue. Ever since we have instead we have starting with widows 8 been given an unending pile of shitty os's that get worse with each forced update.
AFAIK, win2000 didn’t do games very well. I think I remember it not supporting d3d or OpenGL, or something along these lines. It’s problematic when most of the value in windows for home users is the gaming library.
But yes, windows 2000 professional was the best windows ever.
No benefit to go earlier really.