alt Hacker NewsThey were introduced in the Microsoft Plus package for Windows 98, then finally integrated into Windows ME. Windows ME was released after Windows 2000, so the feature didn't appear there. But it did appear in XP. You could actually install the Windows ME version of the shell extension on 2000.
Ah, well that might explain my thinking it came around in the XP days - by then I had discovered the WinRAR indefinite trial, so I didn't really need an alternative.