2000's biggest issues are with older games that use legacy sound setups. You'll get an error message every time, no matter what kind of sound card you've got. I have an ISA AWE64 from Sound Blaster, set up on the usual A220 and IRQ5 and DMA1 settings, with A330 for MIDI music. The music works fine, but the sound effects crap out every time, every game, and with any other sound card I've tried yet. It just don't happen. OpenGL support is iffy at best, both with my old video card and the Radeon that's in there now. It works sometimes, but when it does, it's sluggish beyond belief even with 300-something meg of RAM. DOS games are right out, in other words, and newer games that use OpenGL for graphics rendering aren't going to run right. Don't even ask me about what happens with Direct3D. Suffice to say I've pondered moving the reset switch to the keyboard. 2000 was designed for business, not for pleasure. That's why there's 2000 Professional, but not 2000 Home.

XP, what I've seen of it and used it for, seems to be the opposite. XP Professional has been less-than-stellar for business, but kicks ass at games. I have yet to use XP Home - but what I hear of it tells me I should stick with Pro - so I can't speak for it over Pro. However, XP was designed for play. Just look at the UI (which is completely customizable, as so many seem to forget) out of the box. It's just begging for you to play with it. But if that doesn't tickle your fancy, you can set it to look just like Windows 98 or 2000.

If it's games you want, use XP. And since this is my offering, I'll say to stick with XP Pro. You're not paying for it yourself, right? ;)