>>>Nick,
>>>
>>>I don't know if this applies or not, but with Win 2K, when given the choice between stability and backward compatibility, stability was chosen. A trend, perhaps?
>>
>>Hi George,
>>
>>Probably. When I install the new version of Windows on my PC I also tend to reinstall it from scratch for stability, rather then install over my old Windows for backward compatibility with a mess on my hard drives... :)
>
>Personally, I'm looking forward to Win 2K. I've posted this information before, so I won't re-hash it. However, it does look like some serious problems (such as DLL compatibility) have addressed in such a manner that they'll be a thing of the past. Of course, I'm sure it'll introduce some new ones, especially with some older applications< g >.

It will create problems when installing many older applications, since the File Protection System will block application installs from overwriting system files, and the changes needed to make side-by-side DLLs and OCXs work will at a minimum require the installation program to write its desired components to new locations. The writeup in the last MSDN Newsletter gave a pretty good overview of compatibility issues; if you've lost your paper copy, it's available at msdn.microsoft.com/voices/news on the Web.