By Michael Cherry [bio]
Posted: Jul. 31, 2006

The following is an illustration accompanying an article published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. More samples of our content, as well as a list of upcoming articles and reports are also available.

The Network Map is designed to give users a view of their network to help them manage connections and diagnose problems. However, because Microsoft is only supporting its own discovery protocol, Windows Rally, which few devices support, the Network Map is not particularly useful. This illustration shows all of the devices the Network map was able to identify on a network that includes a Windows Vista (DELL01) PC, Windows XP Media Center, Windows Server 2003, Apple Mini, Apple iBook (IBOOK01), network print server, and two networked TiVos. While the Network Map did see one of the computers running Mac OS X, it could not place it on the map.