If you thought the sequel to StarCraft is exciting you might be surprised that the sequel to WarCraft can still be played on a modern operating system.
One of the problems though is that mulitplayer over local network requires IPX, a network technology that has been removed from Windows since Vista. But fear not. If you get IPXWrapper from here (alternative mirror) and drop the files in the WarCraft II program folder.
From the Read Me:
IPXwrapper is a winsock wrapper which transparently tunnels IPX packets over IPusing UDP port 54792. To use it, simply copy ipxwrapper.dll, wsock32.dll andmswsock.dll to the directory containing your legacy program.
When this step is complete you can launch WarCraft II and create a LAN game using IPX, as you normally would on a system with the IPX protocol installed. Remember to check that the firewall doesn’t block anything.
IPXWrapper also works for other games that require IPX, including C&C: Red Alert 2, Army Men RTS, Lords of Magic SE, Dark Reign, Diablo I (see detailed Diablo setup here) (List updated based on comments, thanks for any input!).
For an active WarCraft II community, take a look at War2Combat.