[iso1631]

I think people were happy with NT4, 2000, Windows 95, and possibly Windows 98 as it had a fair number of technical improvements over Vanilla 95 (OSR2 brought in support for >2G drives for example but it wasn't until 98 you could use it properly)

From memory XP was the first "phone home" windows version which required some form of online registration. I stopped using windows at home or admining it around then.

[vbezhenar]

You can't be happy with 95 or 98. They were terrible. NT4 was nice though.

[iso1631]

95 compared with dos and 3.11 for workgroups. NT4 was great for businesses, you couldn't play Red Alert on it though.