The last 2 and a half years, I have done my best to keep my hands clean of th DOS-based OS'es. So, basically, I have around 2 and a half years of daily experience with Win 2k, and about 1 and a half years of daily experience with Win XP.
Windows 2000 is slightly, but noticeably faster in office apps, and less noticeably faster in gaming. Neither one has ever truly crashed for me. Windows 2000, isn't very compatible with many things, and hardware support isn't really very good for much of the gaming hardware. Windows XP has much better compatibility though. Because after all, Win XP has an enhanced Win 2k kernel, and the most important change is the compatibility. The registration is optional, but the activation isn't, and if you get the OEM version, you can reinstall it any amount of times in any period of time, and if you activate it online it takes about 2-3 seconds. I think that hassle is worth the extra compatibility. The performance is virtually identical, and both are far superior to the DOS-based OS'es. One thing I don't like about 2000, besides the lack of compatibility, is it takes about twice as long to boot - upwards of 30 seconds for me. Win XP takes about 15 seconds. MS optimized the boot up because many people didn't like the time it took, and it was supposed to be really in-efficient.
Tell me if you want more info.
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