3 ms·

How was it better than Win2K?

AlecSchueler 1y ago
Lots of relatively small UI improvements that all added up. I honestly never noticed them until years later when I had to use a slightly older machine and had an "oh wow" moment.
devnull3 1y ago
For me the look and feel of Win XP was breath of fresh air compared to Windows 98. WinXP was more user friendly and I was not a power user back then.
carstenhag 1y ago
It had Pinball, Solitaire and other games we never really understood.
whobre 1y ago
Multiple users on a same machine out of the box and way faster boot time. Didn't care for the UI, though - looked childish...
- int_19h 1y ago
  Win2K did multiple users more or less the same, the only difference I remember from XP is the login screen that would list all accounts so you didn't have to type the username. As for UI, it was very easy to switch to classic mode.
  - whobre 1y ago
    > Win2K did multiple users more or less the same No, it didn't. You had to use some 3rd party software for that.
int_19h 1y ago
Better hardware support. Taskbar grouping. ClearType. Remote Desktop. More games ran on it (mostly thanks to higher DirectX version). From developer perspective, XP was the first version of Windows with registration-free COM and side-by-side assemblies, which (if used properly by app devs) fully solved the "DLL hell" problem.
- bombcar 1y ago
  A huge percentage of XP drivers worked just fine in w2k - sometimes you had to edit the ini or inf file or whatever it was.
  - anthk 1y ago
    They often just shipped the same driver for both.
    - bombcar 1y ago
      IIRC it was almost always the video card driver; I ran W2K for quite a few years into the XP era before moving to XP with 2K theme. Everything was happy except the video card drivers, which were often "XP-only" but actually worked fine with 2k.
SoftTalker 1y ago
Win2k Pro was peak Windows.
p_l 1y ago
Vectored Exception Handlers. Better support for dealing with "we never tested outside of windows 98" apps. early version of SxS. Various small enhancements.

Lots of relatively small UI improvements that all added up. I honestly never noticed them until years later when I had to use a slightly older machine and had an "oh wow" moment.

devnull3 1y ago

For me the look and feel of Win XP was breath of fresh air compared to Windows 98. WinXP was more user friendly and I was not a power user back then.

carstenhag 1y ago

It had Pinball, Solitaire and other games we never really understood.

whobre 1y ago

Multiple users on a same machine out of the box and way faster boot time. Didn't care for the UI, though - looked childish...

int_19h 1y ago
Win2K did multiple users more or less the same, the only difference I remember from XP is the login screen that would list all accounts so you didn't have to type the username. As for UI, it was very easy to switch to classic mode.
- whobre 1y ago
  > Win2K did multiple users more or less the same No, it didn't. You had to use some 3rd party software for that.

int_19h 1y ago

Better hardware support. Taskbar grouping. ClearType. Remote Desktop. More games ran on it (mostly thanks to higher DirectX version). From developer perspective, XP was the first version of Windows with registration-free COM and side-by-side assemblies, which (if used properly by app devs) fully solved the "DLL hell" problem.

bombcar 1y ago
A huge percentage of XP drivers worked just fine in w2k - sometimes you had to edit the ini or inf file or whatever it was.
- anthk 1y ago
  They often just shipped the same driver for both.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    IIRC it was almost always the video card driver; I ran W2K for quite a few years into the XP era before moving to XP with 2K theme. Everything was happy except the video card drivers, which were often "XP-only" but actually worked fine with 2k.

SoftTalker 1y ago

Win2k Pro was peak Windows.

p_l 1y ago

Vectored Exception Handlers. Better support for dealing with "we never tested outside of windows 98" apps. early version of SxS. Various small enhancements.