was it only 6 years? felt like 20. surely it didn't qualify for early release for good behavior

My comment was partly tongue in cheek.

It did feel like 20 years, though.

According to Wikipedia, it was initially released in 2001 … which … seems later than I remember? I don't remember upgrading to it, but I guess Win 98 came with IE 5? But +20 years would be 2021 so … I guess it wasn't quite. I was using Firefox by at least 2006, maybe 2007 at the latest.