Can confirm. It was the first OS I ever pirated (technically it was the Data Center edition, I bought off of some dude on a forum via a money order I sent him[1], because my internet was so slow 28.8k). I was trying to get a system that wouldn’t BSOD and had heard how reliable NT 4 was before it so I downloaded it… and the kid with the coolest[2] Dragon Ball Z website was using ASP to serve it.
I ran the DC edition and eventually just Pro for years. It wasn’t until well past SP4 I stopped using it and switched to XP, which I only did because it was running the NT kernel.
If it wasn’t for Win2k and ISS I probably wouldn’t have ever become a software engineer. Truly appreciate Microsoft’s anti-piracy efforts being completely ineffective at the time.
[1] I was worried about sending some random guy my $20 as a 14 year old. But I really should’ve been worried about my mom checking the mail and then asking me WTF I got in the mail. She was pissed but still let me use it.
[2] I forget the name but I just remember I liked it better than PlanetNamek. It was also really cool to me that some kid had a Dad who could do that sort of thing. I had a lot of trouble even hosting a site somewhere besides Geocities because my parents wouldn’t use their credit card online (which is how I discovered the usefulness of money orders).
