How did you find Neowin?

[Squirrelington]

On 19/12/2022 at 10:38, Steven P. said:

IEXBeta?

Nawh I feel like it also had Win in the name. I'm sure I'll randomly remember a week from now.

[Joni_78]

On 19/12/2022 at 21:01, Squirrelington said:

Nawh I feel like it also had Win in the name. I'm sure I'll randomly remember a week from now.

I think i used to be on the same site looking for leaked betas. I’m not sure if i remember it correctly, but could it have been winbeta?

I think that there was some irc channel related to that site where you could then download the files with mirc. Atleast in win2k and win me beta days.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Joni_78

[Squirrelington]

On 19/12/2022 at 13:41, Joni_78 said:

I think i used to be on the same site looking for leaked betas. I’m not sure if i remember it correctly, but could it have been winbeta?

I think that there was some irc channel related to that site where you could then download the files with mirc. Atleast in win2k and win me beta days.

Yeah that might be it! I also spent a lot of time on DALnet and Efnet back in the day. And running my own ircd, whether it was unrealircd, bahamut, and whatever ircd DALnet used before bahamut... I forget. Been too long.

[Maison da Silva]

Google and Twitter

[William Rawlings]

Trying to download Google Crome led me here!

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 19/12/2022 at 20:01, Squirrelington said:

Nawh I feel like it also had Win in the name. I'm sure I'll randomly remember a week from now.

ActiveWin.

[cousinarlo]

How did I find Neowin? I was searching for a well known humour piece called French Military History, and Neowin was the first link I saw with the actual text. Looking around I saw that humour was one of many topics here so I accepted the offer to create an account. 

[+Raphaël G. MVC]

On 27/01/2023 at 14:00, cousinarlo said:

How did I find Neowin? I was searching for a well known humour piece called French Military History, and Neowin was the first link I saw with the actual text. Looking around I saw that humour was one of many topics here so I accepted the offer to create an account. 

Welcome!

For me this was many many moons ago  (18 something years?). I wandered on a French forum called 3dchips-fr.com (it doesn't exist anymore). If I remember correctly, Neowin was mentioned in one of the posts and that's how I got here.

[MtnDewCodeRedFreak]

When I was looking up Windows XP betas way back in 2000-2001. A bunch of links came up and this site popped up. I lurked for a while (2001 to August 2003) before joining. It will be my 20th this August 2023. 😁 

Side note: Neowin’s founder Steven Parker and I both have the same birthday! 😉

[nerim]

I found this site during a crazy/stressful time in my life, looking for technical tips and help, etc. I think I joined just to b*tch about how complicated it was for me to try setting up the Vivaldi browser. 🙄 

Ever since Steven P. posted a "get out of here" gif pic to me of (I think) Cary Grant, pointing me toward the exit, I've felt somewhat at home, lol. 😁

--some old guy with goggles who goes by the nickname of nerim 😎

[xMorpheousx416]

Back when Bink.Nu was just a message board itself... then when Steven Bink built his website, he added a forum to it..., later made me a moderator. It was someone there, when we were discussing XP's infamous pagefile settings vs. amount of system RAM (that convo lasted till Windows 7 release)... they mentioned that this site was one to add to your favorites as a place to come and get tons of ideas on not only tech, but ways to utilize XP beyond its selling point basics.

His site no longer exists, but I still see him post from time to time on Facebook. It has certainly been a minute.

[A49ER08]

was googling to find the new updates on Edge, FIreFox & Chrome (specifically w/ regards to nVidia's super resolution patch)

and so here I am... I've heard of this site before but think I've only been on here once or twice..

I'm an avid user of guru3d though!

[kowcop]

Pretty sure this was the site that was founded on the back of the XP ISO leak from the viacom FTP site.. or is my memory a bit hazy?

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 09/02/2023 at 05:46, kowcop said:

Pretty sure this was the site that was founded on the back of the XP ISO leak from the viacom FTP site.. or is my memory a bit hazy?

We were almost a year old when that happened.

Neowin Founded Oct 1 2000
Windows XP (devils0wn leak): August 2001 https://www.neowin.net/news/today-marks-the-10th-anniversary-of-windows-xp-rtm/

 

Unfortunately we don't have a lot of the earliest articles in our db.

[kowcop]

On 09/02/2023 at 17:51, Steven P. said:

Windows XP (devils0wn leak): August 2001

That's not the leak I was thinking of.. it was an FTP site for VIA that had stored a very early private beta of XP (Whistler) - public beta was released a month later. I cant remember which site we were using to discuss it at the time.

Here we go.. Microsoft released the first public beta build of Whistler, build 2296, on October 31, 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP

[bilalgs]

I have been a member since 2003, I was only 23 years old. 20 years! And this is my 5th post! See you in about 20 years. Stay young and fresh!

[Adam Marshall]

A colleague of mine recommended it to me.

[tHaCuBe]

Found this website in late 2001 when Windows XP was nearing release. I was 16 then, now I'm in 38. I've been on this site over half of my life! How time flies!

[JesseBee]

I found Neowin while reading the text of a pending update to my Windows 11 machine.

[hellowalkman Reporter]

On 02/07/2023 at 22:49, JesseBee said:

I found Neowin while reading the text of a pending update to my Windows 11 machine.

Welcome to Neowin!

[50Precent]

Was looking for information about setting up a raid configuration. Didnt find what I needed but this place looks neat.

[xrobwx71]

https://web.archive.org/web/20030613084338/https://www.neowin.net/

The day before I joined. 

[Wir3Tap]

On 03/04/2023 at 12:52, bilalgs said:

I have been a member since 2003, I was only 23 years old. 20 years! And this is my 5th post! See you in about 20 years. Stay young and fresh!

15 posts for me, joined April 1st, 2003

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 31/07/2023 at 10:39, Wir3Tap said:

15 posts for me, joined April 1st, 2003

15 brilliant posts  

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 09/02/2023 at 21:55, kowcop said:

That's not the leak I was thinking of.. it was an FTP site for VIA that had stored a very early private beta of XP (Whistler) - public beta was released a month later. I cant remember which site we were using to discuss it at the time.

Here we go.. Microsoft released the first public beta build of Whistler, build 2296, on October 31, 2000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP

Bit late to reply, but it is true my motivation to start Neowin was to post info about Windows leaks, because there were no decent sites doing it. I was filling a void at the time. I met Tom Warren on EFNet, he was going by the name creamhackered and he came to Neowin and not long after (2004) he broke the news about the leaked Windows 2000 source code leak, and the rest is history 😛 

Microsoft really hated Neowin back then heh.

What really changed Neowin, was when Microsoft opened up beta testing for everyone with the Windows 8 Consumer preview back in February 2012 (although that release was also already locked down "Beta testers" had no say at all in what was ultimately released) Neowin could no longer leak pre releases to the public, because from Windows 8 people had easy access to the betas.

Microsoft really ended up managing pre releases, Windows 10 is a prime example of basic feature requests or bugs being reported thousands of times by beta testers and Microsoft just ignoring that feedback. They will do exactly what they want to do and the "beta testing" is mostly pretend and a free way to replace what used to be a professional Quality Assurance program they used to have to pay for with Windows. Now they can rely on telemetry and free feedback from thousands of Insiders (consumers).

Microsoft are also part of the problem with major corporations normalizing releasing beta quality software as a finished product with the attitude of "maybe we'll fix it later".  Windows 98 might not have the reputation as being stable as Windows XP with its NT layer but it was a product of years of beta testing, and released as a "finished product". Yearly "Service Packs" fixed what bugs that were discovered. Now we live in a time where monthly and out of bounds updates are needed to fix the poor quality of Windows 10 and 11 beta quality releases because they keep tacking on untested features and ignoring Insider feedback.