Rating: 
Summary: OK but be aware of critical software setting for IIb laptops
Review: The Microsoft MN-700 Wireless 802.11g router was my first experience with wireless. Installation was easy, and the NetGear IIg PC card in my Sony laptop recognized the router immediately, and worked perfectly. The Netgear IIb USB device in my wife's Toshiba laptop recognized the router, but would not work. Of course, I suspected the IIb USB device. After days of calling, updating, swapping devices and reinstalling software, I found an option in the router's Base Station software that was set at "IIg (faster)". As soon as I changed the setting to "IIg plus IIb (slower)", the Netgear IIb device worked fine. So, Microsoft's hardware is great, the software is great. But the lack of clear simple communications caused me distress. If MN-700s are preset to "IIg only", then documentation should be presented that reads "The Base station is preset at the faster IIg speed. If your laptop has a IIb device, use Base Station software to select the slower option." I suspect that a good number of the poor reviews for this product at Amazon may be attributed to this issue.
Rating: 
Summary: Totally Dependable
Review: I was petrified at the thought of disconnecting my existing modem and installing this unknown quantity. But the installation was a breeze. My DSL was back up within seconds. And the wireless adaptor for my daughters' computer was even easier to install. We had a wireless network up and running in half an hour. We don't notice any loss of speed in loading/streaming. As much as I hate to admit it, you can count on Microsoft!
Rating: 
Summary: So-so Wi-fi
Review: I haven't used other wireless routers but this one was not an ideal solution. The biggest problems are the disconnects and the speed in that order. It wasn't really simple to set up either though not overwhelmingly difficult. I have a D-link 704 which is wired but connects much faster than the mn700 even when both are wired. There is a half-1 second delay on the mn700 to bring up pages. Plus the most annoying factor is that the router drops connection at varying times.
Rating: 
Summary: Wireless connection and DHCP has problems....
Review: I get this MN-700 to replace MN-500, what a mistake! 1. DHCP sometimes hand out IPs out of the setting range.
2. Wireless keeps on droping and reconnecting. That makes downloading large files almost impossible.
3. In b/g mix mode, b mode client may not be able to connect. I know people will argue that interferrence (from 2.4GHz appliances) is the cause of disconnection, but my MN-500 never has the same problem. Microsoft seems slow (or not at all) release the fixes for this model. :(
Rating: 
Summary: Get anything but this one
Review: Man does this router really suck, tried to set this up for a friend and the first one was defective, ok maybe i just got unlucky, so he returns it.
Then we get everything running on the 2nd one, no problem, after installing the software for 30mins.
Then all of a sudden it just stops working so we go into the settings and the base station isnt even showing up.
Long story short go with a linksys, had it up and running in 2 minutes, the guy i was installing it for was like thats it? dont we have to go through some long installation process?
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely dreadful
Review: My first advice to anyone considering purchasing this router would be to go to the Microsoft website and read through the community newsgroups (http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/broadbandnetworking/10_Newsgroups.mspx). The number of users experiencing problems with this unit should give you a good idea about the quality of this product. I bought the MN-700 for use in my home office and my first impression of it was that it seemed very clumsy to set up and use compared to my non-wireless Linksys router I've been using. The documentation was very sparse and somewhat confusing. The setup program also reset my computer's network settings without my permission, which really iritates me. Eventually, though, I was able to get my ethernet clients on the Internet, but I was never able to get my wireless clients connected, nor was I able to get the port forwarding to work. I didn't bother to contact tech support because (as you'll read in the newsgroups) the support for this product has been outsourced to India and appears to be pretty useless. I get the feeling after using this router that it's designed to be fairly plug-and-play for non-technical home users, but I think that might be its greatest problem. It tries to configure everything itself and does not provide enough control or technical documentation to the end user. So when something doesn't work right, its much more difficult to figure out the problem.
Rating:
Summary: Great for Wireless... Not so Great as a Router
Review: I'll start by saying that I really did my research before buying this and I still think it was a good purchase. In terms of bang-for-your-buck, this device tops the list. The SPI Firewall, WPA support, and easy setup make this a great choice for the casual home user. Add to that the great help menus, the industry's best support site, and the oh-so Microsoft intuitive wizards and you've got yourself an easy best-buy. So why I'm only giving it three stars? In short, I'm dissapointed in the router performace and functionality. This is really only going to impact those of us who like to tinker with things like this, so for those of you who don't know your DMZs from your DHCPs, go ahead - this is probably a very good choice. The wireless aspects work great! Here is my beef: As a router, it's quite limited and I find the NAT and firewall to be sluggish. Also, you can't disable the firewall without shutting down the routing functionality altogether (switching it over to Access Point mode). Which, of course, disables NAT and DHCP as well. This is fine if you only have one PC on the network and are running WinXP firewall but not so great if you want to share the connection without messing around with ICS. In router mode, it seems to make for slow page loads with new DNS lookups and/or when loading a page with multiple DNS redirected images. If I bypass the router and connect to my ISP directly with the Windows XP PPPoE client and XP firewall, I get much faster page loads. However, java speed tests are exactly the same with either config so for file downloads and VPN connections (tunneling through the firewall) it works perfect. If MS doesn't release an upgraded firmware soon, adding more functionality to the router, I'll probably buy a stand-alone firewall and keep the MN-700 as a great WAP. So, in short, if you need strong router performance, look elsewhere but keep this in mind for a great, inexpensive home WAP.
Rating:
Summary: Easy set up and great support
Review: I'm running a Sony VAIO TR3A and an older Micron Desktop. I also have a Playstation 2 using the network with linksys wireless bridge. I was able to get it all set up and running on all three systems in about 2 hours. Ran into some problems with my laptop which MS support was able to help me with. So far I'm pleased with it and it's doing everything that I need. Tip: If you have a network bridge on your laptop, delete it, that was the problem with my SONY VAIO which would not let me connect to the internet.
Rating:
Summary: Seems as "You Luv it or you hate it"
Review: I replaced a wired homenetwork of 4 PC's running Win98se on 2PC's, Win XP and Win2K on dual boot machine(connected to cable modem), and finally a WinXP Pro box with MN-720 adapter. I only run wireless on the one XP Pro box but setup was easy and all machines works fine.
One reason that I believe DSL connection problems with this base station and the occasional cable modem problem is the quality of the broadband connection. First off DSL is flakey in my book and dependent on a lot of factors hinging around phone lines. Cable is superior conduit for data depending upon reliability of cable provider. That said, I have had zero lost connections for the two months of operation and connection at 54mbps 95% of the time. It is true that the software interface with the base station takes a pretty long time refreshing network components, but this is only a minor inconvenience. I was astounded at how easy the dual boot machine configured. I was initially worried that after install in the XP partition that booting into the Win2K partition was going to be a nightmare, but no problem! I suggest for those who give bad reviews to check the status and reliability of their broadband connection before blaming the hardware. I left a wired network primarily due to the Linksys router having tremendous difficulty with port forwarding setup to facilitate netcam sessions in MSN Messenger. I now regularly netcam with family all across the country without a hitch! I love it!
Rating:
Summary: Worst router I've ever configured
Review: I am a consultant. I tried setting this up at a client with Verizon DSL. The WAN (DSL) connection would drop after 30 seconds each time. Resetting everything didn't help, and neither did getting a new DSL Modem nor anything else. Verizon had me do a number of exotic troubleshooting steps that no home user wants to do, nor needs to do as shown by the following. I left and came back with my own old DI-614+ 802.11b router and it worked like a charm - no need to configure the DSL Modem or anything else - all it needed was to put PPPoE in the router and put in the verizon user name and password in the router as well, and everything worked perfectly. Incidentally, Verizon DSL only supports Linksys routers specifically, but will give you general instructions for any router, in my experience. Also, avoid the software utility if you can - it's better to configure it via the web interface. The LAN part works fine, so if that's all you need, it'll be OK. Bottom Line: Avoid this one and get a D-Link or Netgear instead - if not, a linksys may work, too, though I've had some bad experiences with the quality of the WRT-54G router as well.
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