XP SP2 was a huge hit. And it had a long run after it dropped until 7 was released (many people skipped vista)

For consumers, XP had most of the stability of 2000 but the drivers and game compatibility of 98. While I loved 2000 as a huge improvement over 98, I really liked XP and found it (relatively) trouble free and resource light.

Compared to Windows ME, I remember it as a hit. Windows 2000 was a homerun though

I remember similar things. Running Windows 2000, even going back to Win98 on my first PC (shipped with XP before SP1) and also running Windows 2003 Server at some point, all just to avoid XP. After SP2, it was fine.

Yes, XP was a hit. It was perfectly usable, and quite popular, well before SP2.

The student edition was particularly well received around campuses