> For me personally, Windows XP means XP SP2. Anything before that wasn’t worth using.
That is because Microsoft had its own versioning system:
- RC was alpha quality.
- Releases were betas.
and then starting with SP2 one can talk about a released product.
NT had 6 SPs, 2000 had 4, XP had 2. Even in Windows 11 they fixed things (taskbar) after release.
This really tells a not so nice story about engineering and quality at Microsoft.
The only thing I remember is that I would never install SP2 because of EULA. I don't remember the specifics though. Around that time I started mostly using Linux anyway.
SP2 was fantastic. For me personally, Windows XP means XP SP2. Anything before that wasn’t worth using.