98*/2000 was pure garbage. You could literally bypass the login screen on 98 because it had no real user account and tokens, just profiles for convenience.
Driver support was awful, there was no memory protection so drivers constantly caused bsod. XP was the first time the consumer desktop got the NT foundation, meaning real user/session security, far better stability under load, and way fewer “one program crashed, so the OS is toast” moments.
XP had its problems too, it’s still Windows afterall and Windows was always garbage. But 98 was awful.
XP was when everything went to shit. It was awful and all the enshittification began right there.
98*/2000 was pure garbage. You could literally bypass the login screen on 98 because it had no real user account and tokens, just profiles for convenience. Driver support was awful, there was no memory protection so drivers constantly caused bsod. XP was the first time the consumer desktop got the NT foundation, meaning real user/session security, far better stability under load, and way fewer “one program crashed, so the OS is toast” moments.
XP had its problems too, it’s still Windows afterall and Windows was always garbage. But 98 was awful.