Any of this make sense?
No. Windows 2000 still works fine.
[OK, so I do have some boxes running Win2k3 Server and XP, but
(a) the first thing I do with any XP box is turn off the teletubbies mode so that it looks like a grown-up computer
(b) the second thing I do is spot that most of my software won't run without administrator priviledges so I just give myself those, end of problem.]