Core2Duo vs. Pentium D?

[Agent Orange]

No. You are flat wrong, full stop.

2000 is the first version of NT that “feels” like a descent of the 9x line because it was the first serious attempt by Microsoft to incorporate “plug and play” hardware detection, full DirectX support, and other “Mainstream Desktop” features, but the kernel is *entirely* NT.

… Kinda feel like you’re getting wires crossed in your head with Windows ME.

You are correct and I'm a subject of my own feeble research methods and apologize to all. What I meant to indicated was that W2K was an extension of NT and therefore not completely new technology.

 

[lowen]

You are correct and I'm a subject of my own feeble research methods and apologize to all. What I meant to indicated was that W2K was an extension of NT and therefore not completely new technology.

Correct, Windows 2000 was NT 4.0++. But it was in my experience more stable, and way more usable as a desktop system.

As much as I am loathe to write it, a big part of its success in my opinion is that Microsoft focused more on the core Intel architecture and dropped DEC Alpha support, which must have been a huge resource drain due to the shenanigans one must do when developing for Alpha.

Alpha fanbois' loss is everyone else's gain. And while XP took that focus to the next level by dropping even more architectures (PC '98 and some SGI kit), it didn't really have the same impact, at least not until SP2.

Of course, for many folk, the greatest draw of Win2K versus XP is the lack of the all intrusive activation ....

 

[Agent Orange]

Correct, Windows 2000 was NT 4.0++. But it was in my experience more stable, and way more usable as a desktop system.

As much as I am loathe to write it, a big part of its success in my opinion is that Microsoft focused more on the core Intel architecture and dropped DEC Alpha support, which must have been a huge resource drain due to the shenanigans one must do when developing for Alpha.

Alpha fanbois' loss is everyone else's gain. And while XP took that focus to the next level by dropping even more architectures (PC '98 and some SGI kit), it didn't really have the same impact, at least not until SP2.

Of course, for many folk, the greatest draw of Win2K versus XP is the lack of the all intrusive activation ....

SP2 is a must for XP to be effective.