> XP was peak if hardware compatibility is important.
It all started with Windows NT 4. It had its own kernel and was enterprise (and network) focused, compared to Windows 98 (which was Windows 95 (which was Windows 3.11 minus the DOS host dependency)) with bolted on network capabilities.
Windows 2000 is literally "Windows NT 5.0", and Windows XP is "Windows NT 5.1". The win95 lineage was decisively killed by Windows Me, after which the NT kernel took over the entire product line.
> XP was peak if hardware compatibility is important.
It all started with Windows NT 4. It had its own kernel and was enterprise (and network) focused, compared to Windows 98 (which was Windows 95 (which was Windows 3.11 minus the DOS host dependency)) with bolted on network capabilities.
Windows 2000 is literally "Windows NT 5.0", and Windows XP is "Windows NT 5.1". The win95 lineage was decisively killed by Windows Me, after which the NT kernel took over the entire product line.