Because most people who used windows prior to windows XP used one of the 9x line (95, 98, 98se, Me), which were shal we say sub par to say the least, windows 20

Because most people who used windows prior to windows XP used one of the 9x line (95, 98, 98se, Me), which were shal we say sub par to say the least, windows 2000 was part of the NT line which the masses didn't really get to use until XP. 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.