> 2000 couldn’t run many games because (being a descendant of the NT line) it didn’t support all the 9x graphics APIs.
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.
> we used to call the Windows XP UI the "Fisher Price" UI.
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.
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.