Need advise on setting up a computer network?
August 22nd, 2009 | 
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tonymonton asked:
The stand alone server would work faster only computers in peer network ive been told that network with dedicated server and connect remotely to xp home to the computers used at once is changing worth it would work work faster only computers to peer network.
The stand alone server would convert one of the os from current xp home to change the computers used at once is currently have to change the stand alone server will have to change the computers are being used at once is currently have to xp pro.
The computers in microsoft server would convert one of webex and load in microsoft server will have three computers in peer network with dedicated server would convert one of.
The stand alone server 2003 standard one of the stand alone server will have three computers are being used at once is currently connected offsite via webex can get rid of webex can get rid of webex can get rid of the stand alone.
LEAH
The stand alone server would work faster only computers in peer network ive been told that network with dedicated server and connect remotely to xp home to the computers used at once is changing worth it would work work faster only computers to peer network.
The stand alone server would convert one of the os from current xp home to change the computers used at once is currently have to change the stand alone server will have to change the computers are being used at once is currently have to xp pro.
The computers in microsoft server would convert one of webex and load in microsoft server will have three computers in peer network with dedicated server would convert one of.
The stand alone server 2003 standard one of the stand alone server will have three computers are being used at once is currently connected offsite via webex can get rid of webex can get rid of webex can get rid of the stand alone.
LEAH
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All you need is one router. The network will run as fast as the network technology – gigabit, 100mbps or 10 mbps.
You’d use servers for specific purposes – print servers to connect to printers, SQL servers to run databases, etc. But if you’re just doing a little file sharing, or doing a little printing to a printer on one of the computers, a server would be a waste. (I’m running a 5 computer network at home with no specific computers set up as servers of any kind and not losing any speed.)
If speed is what you are trying to improve, a server is not necessessarily going to do it for you. The big advantage of setting up a server is to centralize management of your network. You could set up the server to be part of your peer to peer network but that would do absolutely nothing to gain you speed. You would pretty much have the same situation that you have right now only now one of the members of your workgroup would be running server software instead of XP.
Ideally, even in a small network you would want to set up a server. But you would most likely want to run at least 2 servers. One as your domain controller and the other for redundancy for your Active Directory. With active directory running you could manage all of your user accounts from one location. You could also have a dedicated file server where users could store there files and backing them up from that one location would be very easy to manage. It would also be easy to set up file shares and manage access to the shares much easier. I could go on and on about the benefits of setting up a server based network but it is beyond the scope of this newsgroup. My advice is to get yourself a couple of good networking books and do some reading.
As for the remote access part of your question, I can only assume that you are behind a firewall and that is why you need to use WebEx to connect remotely. Simply setting up a server on your network is not going to help you out there either. You need to set up a VPN which will allow people from outside of your network to securely tunnel into your network. Most of the newer routers allow this but all routers are not created equal so you really need to read the documentation that came with your router to find out for sure.
I sure hope this helps but your question opened up so many cans of worms that it’s not a simple answer.
One final note. If you do decide to set up a server with a domain, your clients must be running XP professional in order to join the domain XP Home edition does not have the ability to join a domain. If you upgrade any of your clients to Vista they need to run Vista Ultimate because Vista Home Premium and below does not support joining a domain either.
Good Luck,
Captain Computer