3 ms·
Aside from the deep consistency of 2000's UI (after all it more or less progressively improved on the 3.x traditional widget set with in some cases little more
by james412 6y ago
Aside from the deep consistency of 2000's UI (after all it more or less progressively improved on the 3.x traditional widget set with in some cases little more than a recompile required to get the new theme), 2000 was the first consumer experience of a PC OS featuring real per-process virtual memory, and this is probably a big reason why everyone (including myself) remembers it so fondly.
- proverbialbunny 6y agoBecause this would increase stability?
- james412 6y agoNT had it first, but NT didn't really get much of any consumer exposure. Windows 95 was much closer to the Windows 3.1 everything-shared memory model: 16-bit apps (which were still in widespread use) continued being able to access hardware and each others' memory, and memory belonging to the most recently executed 32-bit app. NTVDM in Windows 2000 also supported 16-bit apps, but they were strictly isolated from each other, the hardware, and any 32-bit app. The upshot was a 16-bit utility that would crash or corrupt an unrelated app (or the entire machine) in 3.1 or 95 would only crash itself in 2000. The driver model was also completely redesigned, but I don't know much about that. Any time you hear the old meme about Linux being more stable than Windows, it's important to realize it dates back 20 years when Linux had per-process virtual memory and Windows did not.