Intlharvester

MS Hearts was one of the few applications that used NetDDE. It's possible that this was eliminated from WinXP.

A classic problem with Windows networking is that the incorrect machine becomes the Browse Master due to whatever (mostly bugs in Win 9x). This is due to the fact that Name Resolution uses a different mechanism (WINS/DNS) than does the Network Neighborhood (Master Browser elections). In theory the correct machine - usually the WINS or DC box - should win all of the elections. In practice it doesn't always happen. The resource kit has a tool called browmon.exe which will tell you who thinks they are the master browser on a network. My guess is that there's some sort of conflict going on between the DC and various Win9x boxes on your net leading to a "election storm". If it looks to be the case, the solution to use policy files to disable the 9x boxes ability to participate in browser elections. As for the name resolution issues - could you have 2 WINS servers on the same network perhaps? Other than that I'm stumped. The longterm solution might be to go to active directory and leave all of WINS/Browse stuff behind.

It works fine, but you end up with a newer version of NTFS that's incompatible with NT4 CHKDSK and the NT4 installer.

WMP 6.4 is still included because it is embedded into a large number of webpages, etc.

Check the prefs.js file.

Rdesktop (http://www.rdesktop.org/) is what you need. If you want an official client, you'll have to go with Citrix.

On NT4, IIRC, TCP/IP printing is an optional component. Install it from the network control panel and service pack again.

If you add /BOOTLOG to your boot.ini line, you can see that CHKDSK actually does run and check if the disk is clean or not. I've noted that the startup check is fairly lax. After a crash, you can often run CHKDSK /F and find some minor corruption.

I would say that Microsoft's definite intent is to get workplaces to buy XP Professional. Yes, that equals a price increase for current 9x users. Yes, there's a XP Home to Pro upgrade available. Simple file+print sharing will probably work, but you can't add machines into Domains (NT4 or AD), and that means you are deprived of the management features and you won't have single login, etc. They almost did this with WinME (betas had restricted networking), but backed off.

Re: Windows .NET (XP) Server I'm currently running Windows 2000 Server (legally) which was upgraded from NT4.0. Since I don't feel like reinstalling everything, and have no plans to buy new hardware, it looks like I have to wait until the Server version ships. Any guesses on when this might be? It looks like .NET will go through a couple more betas (Microsoft really wants to get this right or Sun will ream them), and then maybe a service pack before they are going to ship it with the OS. By my recongining, that means mid-2002, if not later. I also somewhat fear core changes which would make Server less adequate as a workstation. For exmaple, are there any plans to drop DirectX support, etc in the Server version?

Anyone know anything about MS Interix? It's only $99, so I was thinking of giving it a try just to see if I could get certain apps running 'natively'. (For those that don't know, Interix is a NT Subsystem peer that provide a UNIX API to NT/2000). Of course, there's no pre-built packages, so I would be hoping that the buildscripts could grok the Interix environment. And that's the big IF, because I know nothing about C and Unix porting. There's also RedHat Cygwin, which has the advantage of a bunch of stuff which is already pre-packaged. But it sounds much more hacky than Interix (sitting on top of Win32 instead of the kernel).

I think you've stumbled upon the "Abandonware" scene, which along with MAME is a great way to waste some time. Much of the stuff is technically w_r_z, but the abandonware guys usually have a code of honor to only post stuff that's off the market. For example, you can still buy Ultima and Zork games, so you probably won't find them on these sites. These sites have been up for a few years and nobody seems very interested in shutting them down. Most focus on games, but there's others with old DOS productivity apps and so on.

Just as a point of reference 3COM 3C509 (this is sorta the 'classic' ISA NIC) are going for less than $5 on eBay. Make sure that you get one with a RJ45 plug (TP). I'd probably go ISA over USB -- USB wasn't really designed for things like network devices, and the ISA stuff is cheap and *very* stable at this point.

There is actually GUI for NET SEND -- or there used to be -- check the Server Manager (srvmgr).

Doh! Should have known that -- 36MB.