[mixmastamyk]

I preferred XP/2003 in classic UI mode. Lots of little improvements.

If you could get winterm on it and recent Firefox it’d be quite usable. Perhaps ReactOS one day.

[gjvc]

and 64-bit (x86_64 not IA64), which no version Windows 2000 was AFAIK

Windows 7 with classic UI is probably the most-recent decent version.

[hylaride]

There were pre-release 64 bit alpha versions of win2k, but otherwise you needed XP/2k3 for 64 bit. XP for amd64 was a bit of a shitshow with drivers (especially on consumer-grade computers), though. It wasn’t until vista that it ironically got better on that front, though people held out upgrading because of how terrible it was…

[antod]

yeah while 2K was their best ever single breakthrough improvement, it was a v1 and XP/2003 in classic mode was a more refined 2K eg more drivers and better plug and play, more graphics compatibility. And 2003 Active Directory had a number of quality of life improvements.

[mixmastamyk]

NT3.5 was perhaps the most stable version I ever used. NT4 brought the new UI, making NT5 aka 2k not the first version of the 95+ UI.