> I initially installed TCP/IP + OS/2 NetBIOS. Of course, the 
 > NE2000 driver supplied with Warp 4 is the same one as Warp 3, 
 > which doesn't work on 99.9% of NE2000s ever made (none of 
 > which have a shared RAM address). Out with the NatSemi one, 
 > as usually.

Yes, their EAGLE driver is -not- a generic NE2000 driver.

 > Later, I added NetBIOS over TCP/IP, because I want to talk to 
 > my Samba server. It added okay, although it didn't work; OS/2 
 > would not see the server.

No idea on that one. Would take some tuning I imagine.

 > I then added the Netware support 
 > protocol (presumably IPX). This turned out to be the bad move 
 > of the decade;

:). My stack is running a cut down netware client (just IPX for Quake),
along with NetBios and Tcp/Ip.

 > MPTS gave an error updating CONFIG.SYS (as it 
 > is prone to doing). From then on, OS/2 during boot says it 
 > could not load the file NETWKSTA.200 in F:\IBMLAN\NETPROG, 
 > although it exists (I checked). I'm also told that the 
 > Network Message stuff is already started during boot, 
 > although it isn't. I expect that to repair this problem I 
 > will have to remove MPTS and TCP/IP and reinstall both.

No. The Netware client is not particularly friendly. As per the docs, did
you run nwfixup.exe? It rearranges the order of the config.sys drivers - a
requirement for the stack to work after adding the netware client. Also
watch our for dupe entries in config.sys. From memory I had to delete a
couple dupe lines - don't need two copies of any of the network drivers :).

 > I'm fairly unimpressed with the user interface, too. The 
 > menus look fairly poor. The hardware manager is next to 
 > useless; as far as I can tell, it does not let you change any 
 > settings, so what's the good of it?

Beat's me :). Ditto for Win95 though. At least we don't have that horid
auto reconfig junk that Win95 includes.

 > I installed it with the 
 > wrong settings for my PAS16 initially; the only way to fix 
 > them was to go back into Selective Install (same as with Warp 
 > 3).

Just change the entry in config.sys. Takes 10 seconds.

 > The speed isn't anything to write home about. I have a Cyrix 
 > 6x86-P166+, 32mb RAM. Windows95 is a lot snappier on the same 
 > hardware, and does not sit around thrashing the disk all day 
 > as Warp4 does.

You need to compare it with WinNT V4. Win95 is the world's last DOS
extender, tiny (and stupid) in comparison.

Speaking of WinNT V4, I shipped an NT4 machine last week. Most impressive
compared to Win95. Really it's what Win95 should be, and by Jan 97 we're
more able to declare Win95 a dead end product. To compare NT4 with WARP V4,
they're the same price, but NT4 is much smaller - only one CDROM, WARP V4
has four. Technology wise, NT4 is about 2 years behind WARP V4. They both
offer acceptable levels of 32 bit multitasking support. NT4 is probably
heaver on memory and no longer the stable product that NT3.51 was renouned
as. NT4 is also the worst (3rd) choice for DOS/WIN support. For DOS/WIN
support I'd rate WARPV4 as top, Win95 a close second, and WinNT4 last.

Overall, as a general workstation operating system, network client, and
internet interface, WARP V4 is way out in front. No comparison at all
really.

Regards.
--- Msgedsq/2 2.2e