I was a hold out for a few years after XP came out but overtime my own (subjective) experiences as well as reading some of the architectural changes (such as they were from NT5->5.1) convinced me there's generally little reason to stick with 2000. If your system works well with 2000, it will probably work well with XP. The exceptions are 486's, as Windows 2000 is the last version that will run on a pre P5 CPU, and systems with small amounts of memory. (obobskivich raises a good point about idle memory burn. I am unable to cut down an XP SP3 base install to use less than ~110 MB or so on a fresh boot. 2000 SP4 saves 30-40MB off of that. Interestingly I have distinct memories of using XP on 128-256MB computers back in the early 2000's and not seeing them disk trash. Maybe SP2 ballooned the working set?)
Jorpho wrote:There is a lengthy article at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457057.aspx suggesting that with adequate system resources, Windows XP will outperform 2000.
Indeed, here's another oldie from MSDN entitled, quite modestly, Windows XP: Kernel Improvements Create a More Robust, Powerful, and Scalable OS.
Anonymous Coward wrote:I never liked XP. I ran Windows 2000 until late 2003 when I bought an LCD monitor and wanted to use ClearType fonts. I can't believe nobody ever managed to hack cleartype support into 2000.
Agree on ClearType. It's the number one thing I miss using old versions of Windows. (I have LCD monitors).
FWIW, if the need ever arises again you might want to try SmoothText. It's a subpixel antialiaser for Windows 2000 (it also more or less works on NT4). ClearType it's not, but it does help.