What's your thoughts on Windows 2000 vs Windows ME vs XP Service Pack 3 on both real and emulation for older software?

[Sooga]

We all know about Windows 98 on both real and virtual machines but rarely is this ever mentioned.
What do you think of Windows 2000 vs XP both 32 and 64 bit on real and emulation?

What are pros and cons you've notice or heard about?

[JosepMa]

Back in the day, all three of them made using MS-DOS applications harder, Windows ME (based on Windows 98) being the less problematic of all them.

For the Windows side of things, Windows ME was a Windows 98 with a couple of nice things ( like move to folder, copy to folder, a feature that didn't make its comeback until Windows 10 IIRC) and some changes in the audio API. It added some APIs from Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 was the evolution of Windows NT 4 and in some ways, the prototype of Windows XP. Windows 2000 had less driver compatibility than Windows XP but other than that, It was sometimes preferred to the later.
Of course, you mention Service Pack 3. That means a cute XP that required not too many resources into a monster not working quite well with 256MB of RAM. ( Service Pack 2 was the addition of the Windows Firewall -actually, the control panel widget, since as a service it already existed-, and some more security tightening).

That's a rough summary of my experience with them (on real hardware).

[wishusknight]

Back in the day, all three of them made using MS-DOS applications harder, Windows ME (based on Windows 98) being the less problematic of all them.

For the Windows side of things, Windows ME was a Windows 98 with a couple of nice things ( like move to folder, copy to folder, a feature that didn't make its comeback until Windows 10 IIRC) and some changes in the audio API. It added some APIs from Windows 2000.

Windows 2000 was the evolution of Windows NT 4 and in some ways, the prototype of Windows XP. Windows 2000 had less driver compatibility than Windows XP but other than that, It was sometimes preferred to the later.
Of course, you mention Service Pack 3. That means a cute XP that required not too many resources into a monster not working quite well with 256MB of RAM. ( Service Pack 2 was the addition of the Windows Firewall -actually, the control panel widget, since as a service it already existed-, and some more security tightening).

That's a rough summary of my experience with them (on real hardware).

I was not an adopter of XP until nearly sp2... 2k had actually pretty decent gaming and media support by its second year out. Its performance ran rings around XP during that time. XP on launch hardware was a total dog until SP1. Now days though I tend to reach for XP much sooner than i would for 2k as it just has a better and more supported feature set. And SP1 and SP3 both did quite a bit to pick up its performance. So it runs on machines as low as a coppermine P3 quite well. That and i find XP can run windows 9x stuff a little nicer than 2k ever could.

And yes, XP had a firewall out of the box, but it was not on by default. It was the security center that SP2 brought.

Windows Melon was never my friend. Horrifically unstable for me the 3 or 4 days I tried it out. Though I set it up for my dad and he used it for several years, and went kicking and screaming to XP. And it turned out to be quite good for him. I dont think I have even set it up in an emulator since, its one of the only OS's that i have no desire to revisit, as 2000 can do everything it does, and better. And for things that 2k cant do, either XP or 98 does it better. And for dos gaming I use 6.22 exclusively anyhow.

I always pick the right tool for the job. None of this wasting time trying to get one VM or one retro machine to do it all.