The order of INNER JOIN's I would like to know if there are any rules about the order of INNER JOIN's in T-SQL 2000.

I had 62x the performance on my query when my INNER JOIN that act like a filter is placed at first instead of the end.

In reference of http://sql-4-life.blogspot.com/2009/03/order-of-inner-joins.html
The optimal sequence (the query plan) is determined by the query executor, based on the SQL code (operators you use), data statistics (statistical distribution of values in columns, data volume, etc.) and database structure (availability of indexes, datatypes, etc.).
So, there are rules, but first not all of them are under your total control and second the result is detemined by a combination of many factors.

To evaluate performance, you should always take a look at the estimated query plan and compare the changes to the plan caused by the changes in your SQL code, to undertand why a query run faster or slower than another.