This is the correct answer. Win2k was probably the most solid and cruft-free release that they did.

Then the enshittification started with Window XP, jelly-mold/curved glass buttons, activation, and .NET everywhere, followed by the disaster that was Vista.

They released Windows 7, and somehow then decided, yet again, to screw things up with Windows 8 because 'mobile'.

Windows 2000 Professional was peak Windows for me. Skipped XP etc thanks to mac. Then 7 for a while.