I do not have a story but running an (edited) driver for early OS does sometimes work in newer OS . That is common knowledge.
However having an OS specific DLL work (as in the nVidia control Panel for said same version driver) under a different OS would require re-writing the DLL or replacing the DLL and CPL with an earlier version that does work with older OS -AND- work with the driver too. Not a simple task but if one has lots of time might find a certain combination that does work, however that would be for just that one driver version + DLL and CPL version...AFAIK.

Have you searched the MSFN forums?, like this topic for example:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/183632-nvidia-gr … dows-2000-2010/

Alright, I'm taking one for the team and am going to try out every driver I can get my hands on with the GTX 280 I just ordered (assuming I figure out how to install Windows 2000 with a USB instead of a CD drive!). Depending on how that goes, I may go backwards and test out some GeForce 9 cards as well.

I don't use Windows 2000 much past years. But with Windows XP I have a working system with a Geforce GT 710 2GB GDDR5 bought new 2021. Small passive card. Details here.
The driver I use now, is stable with everything, even with 3D benchmarks. Some other driver versions seemed to work fine at first, but were somewhat unstable when stressed.
The only small issue I have with the current combination, is that PCIe lane idling sticks to x1 lane after a warm reboot, while it behaves properly with a cold boot or after a standy-wake cycle. When stuck at PCIe v1.1 @ x1 lane; GPU-Z shows it, and one can notice a drop in 3D frame-rate too.

Just to say that that there can be a big difference between booting up and showing the desktop properly, compared to also being reliable for 3D tasks.

Alright, I gave driver 178 a shot on Windows 2000 SP4 with a GTX 280. Installation did produce an error mentioning invalid command line parameters, but managed to make it to the success screen, prompting a reboot. After that, I was able to change color depth and resolution from the taskbar icon, but the Nvidia Control Panel didn't seem to be installed. This seems to mirror the experiences of the other post I mentioned in the OP.

I have a 7950 GT coming this weekend, and I'll try to grab a 9800 if I see any going for a reasonable price.

I think the issue is how the driver interacts with the card. Both version 257 and 197 work perfectly with my 6800 GS, but the same drivers behave differently with the GTX 285.

I suspect that the 7950 GT will work correctly given it's relationship to the 6-series. I wonder if the 9800 would have the same issue as the 200-series given that it's a DirectX 10 design.

The 258.96 XP driver works on vanilla 2000, I got it working with a GTX 460, but it supports up to the 480. Dualview and the control panel also work. The only thing is it needs to be installed via the device manager, because if you install it using the installer it will force install the hd audio driver, which will cause a BSOD on 2000.