XP networking: A little new, a little improved
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First things first. XP's inherent networking improvements are nothing to write home about. If you want to deploy XP on your network as a replacement for your Win9x clients, you should be getting it for its vastly improved stability, not for its networking features.
Of course, XP does have some improvements; I just don't consider them all that important. For example, XP's Remote Desktop and XP Help and Support Center do give users and administrators remote control of their desktop computers from any networked computer. I'd be more excited by this if that functionality hadn't been around for years in such consumer products as Symantec's pcAnywhere 10. And for my money, I'd rather work with the battled tested and more full-featured pcAnywhere 10.0 than Remote Desktop 1.0 any day. I'm also a wee bit worried about the hacking potential of a client operating system that has remote control built in.
Another improvement that makes me a little concerned is XP's improved 802.11b wireless networking capabilities. Though it certainly does make setting up wireless connections easier, imagine my surprise when I first set up XP on my Toshiba Satellite 2805 laptop and was asked not only if I wanted to log in to the office LAN I was trying to reach... but the LAN on the next floor up, as well. Talk about a vivid demonstration of wireless LAN insecurity!
Still, there's no question that for users carrying their laptop between home and office, the ability to switch networks by simply turning it on and plugging it into the network is a win. I just wish there were more to it. As it is, while users can be automatically logged into their servers, they don't automatically get their network drive assignments back. That's fine if you just want Internet connectivity, but it's annoying if you're using a VPN to connect with the office network or if you have a SOHO network at home.
The new Internet Connect Firewall (ICF) is also more annoying than valuable for business use. There's no question that anyone with a broadband connection needs a firewall, but ICF's not only rudimentary, it also prevents users from using VPNs or accessing network drives and printers.
If you want your users to have personal firewalls, run--don't walk--to ZoneAlarm and get ZoneAlarm Pro 3.0 when it's available this December. And since XP enables the use of raw sockets--making it potentially more susceptible to being used for distributed denial of dervice (DDoS) attacks--you'll really want a personal firewall on your XP systems.
When you get right down to it, there's only one set of improvements in XP networking that I really like: policy-based network management with IntelliMirror. The IntelliMirror feature set gives you precise control over how each XP client system works. Unfortunately, these programs only work with both a fully functioning Active Directory setup and not-yet-available .NET servers in place. It would be great if Resultant Set of Policy (RSoP) and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) worked today, but they don't. The former lets you play "what-if" scenarios with group policy changes, and the latter gives you the power to set policy based on system configuration. IntelliMirror's a good start to making administrators' lives easier, but the real goodies are still vaporware.
So technically speaking, should you upgrade? No. I can't see any reason to move up if, like many companies, you just upgraded to to Windows 2000 Professional. You'd really just be moving laterally. However, your 95/98 users are another matter. XP and Windows 2000 both offer far better stability. Given XP Professional's single-unit full version list price tag of $299 and upgrade price of $199 as of the last license change and system requirements, you should only consider an upgrade if you can get XP bundled with a new PC buy.
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