Quote:Is it just me or has Microsoft gone too far in forcing people to switch to XP by making it incompatible with 2k?

Did they point a gun to your head? I don't seem them "forcing" you to buy XP. They are improving a product. A product that went RTM in Dec of 1999.


Quote:Also what's the deal with the funky annoying new User Interface?

It's called. Improvement for ease of use. (supposedly) I turn off all the extras anyway because they get in the way. For new users that I have showed the OS the new features get in the way for them too.

In fact I loaded up NT5 Beta 2 last night on Connectix Virtual PC and I loved it. Options that were removed from the final of Windows 2000 are still in Beta 2 and you can see how they really messed up Win2k by taking them out. . When I looked at NT5 Beta 2 and XP I just laughed. NT5 Beta 2 is faaarr more easy to use than XP.

Yes, yes you can turn off the extras in XP. But it still does not help. It's all still there in small ways. I'm not about to pick apart all of them and I can not convince anyone of anything just take a look for yourself and decide.

Wow DosFreak! Don't get me wrong. I somewhat like the new graphical UI and all, but I gotta be honest with you, it really gets in my way. I especially liked WIndows 2000 especially because its nice,straight forward, and very stable. As far as I can tell, WinXp offers good stability, but its new UI has yet to prove itself. In case you're wondeirng, I'm using an RTM version on a computer at work, so its not a beta or RC that I'm using.
Anyways, I personally think MS has concentrated too much on the UI than actually making the OS as "new" as Win2k was to win9x users to actually convince them of switching over to the NT family (win2k).
Anyways people, please participate in the poll!

Um, now, what made it incompatible with 2k? So far I have found it VERY compatible with it's predecessor, definatley more so than 2000 was to NT4. You can turn the new interface style off as well.

Btw, XP is incompatible with NETBEUI which most win9x/Me/2k machines use to communicate over a network. Yes, you can get XP to work but that requires some TCPIp or IPX/SPX setup.
As for OSs, MacOS certainly looks impressive and has great potential, but still lacks one fundamental fact that windows has always had: Application compatibility,and ease of use. Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT slaughtering MacOS or Linux, I'm just saying that they don't have that "ease of use" that the windows OS has been known for. MacOS and Linux CAN and probably WILL defeat windows (at some point) in terms of ease of use and install, but I unfortunately don't see that coming for a little while.
Anyweays, thanx for participating in the poll! Please keep doing so

NetBEUI is almost as dead as the Win9x code - thank the lord!
How much extra work is involved in setting up a TCP network?
Well, you have to specifiy an IP address and, well that's about it.
Linux was supposed to take a massive percentage of the desktop market some 4 years ago, didn't happen and until the Linux community can convince developers/software comanies/games houses to start developing for not only the 'safe as houses' Windows OS but for the 'not so safe as houses' Linux OS too then it never will take any significant percentage of the desktop market.

Actually, NETBEUI can be installed from the Windows XP CD. And with the new networking wizards, using TCP/IP requires absolutely no effort. Windows XP sets itself up by using UPNP which goes out and detects the existing network settings.

Quote: XP is incompatible with NETBEUI which most win9x/Me/2k machines use to communicate over a network.

First of all TCP/IP is what most MS machines use to communicate over a network. What year are you living in?

Second NETBEUI is crap that adds too much latency to the network. Thank god MS is getting rid of it.

How about next time you actually learn about an OS instead of spouting off falsehoods.

the main problem with xp interface is that it needs to be more responsive because the whole thing just "feels" slow.

Yes the Ui definately is slow. I'm running it on a slow machine (Dual Ppro 200/256MB RAM) and with windows 2000 it was a LOT faster, even though they both have support for dual processors (XP Professional)

Um, actually NetBEUI is a broadcast-based protocol that can, in fact, completely saturate networks (which is why MS spec'd it later as a "small network only" protocol). As for security, in a small network that was generally a lesser concern. Now, as for performance, it was faster than IPX/SPX or TCP/IP in MS OSs when used on the same small networks and only reason why latency would have been much of an issue would be because of its use on large networks. So, spaceman pretty much nailed it with his post.

I used NetBEUI quite a bit in the past, because I could setup servers in DOS 6.x (nifty little conversion for "net.exe" from MS, it was "WG1049.exe" and would permit the ability to share folders and printers) that would host our telephony cards. The speed was due to its small nature, and low memory requirements. You would also see that it has a bit slimmer layering in its design. Now, if you actually saw its behavior on a LAN of more than 15 workstations, you would see the collision activity that can take place using that protocol (broadcast-based protocols beat up devices quite a bit, I have seen Intel NICs die because of the abusive implementation of IPX/SPX from Novell's clients).

I am with clutch on this thrashing of Netbeui. It is very fast on a very small network till you throw a linux box into the mix like I do at home. I need interconnectivity between multiple platforms, and TCP/IP fits that goal, where as Netbeui cannot satify my needs.
 
I though MS had already killed Netbeui off. Shows how little I use this protocol or my knowledge of it.

The perception of security with respect to IPX/SPX is deceiving, and I'll tell you why. Basically, who cares about IPX/SPX? While it *is* routable (and you have to know what you are doing with it and TCP/IP networks running in parallel), any network worth getting in to would more than likely be using TCP/IP. Also, how many script kiddies/hackers/"1337" 12-year olds with too much time on their hands would know anything about that old protocol? It is broadcast based, but was a bit more resistant to "storming" on networks (but did have more network and system overhead) and was indeed, routable. Its level of security is almost synonymous with the "security by obscurity" method that NAT/PAT employs by "hiding" the workstations behind a single IP, and blocking direct access to machines unless the ports are explicitly forwarded. Now, they call it a "firewall", when in fact it isn't. The observation of packet blocking is merely a by-product of the intended design to share a single IP for many machines. Basically, with IPX/SPX, it's "security by limitation" as it's outdated and not really used for anything that most people would care about.
 
There, nice and long-winded...
 

Yes it does work, and has been for a looooong time. 5 PCs (all Win2k) with a switch and a gateway with our dsl modem.
XP's NetBEUI didn't play nice, so networking was iffy at best. Use it at your own risk.

NetBEUI isn't routeable, and yep it's pretty fast. I just found it easier to focus on TCP/IP only since I didn't have to mess with Novell for the last few years. I used NetBEUI to separate the traffic between the MS peer-to-peer network and the client/server connections of the workstations to the Novell servers. Also, 15 isn't an absolute limit, but rather my self-imposed limit on that protocol at the time.

I'm glad that XP is forcing a move.
 
No more Pentium 133's being enough in today's world.
 
A watershed for x86 is necessary....hopefully XP will prove to be sufficient to start it.