Good morning from Wisconsin,

I am responsible for administering a network of 13 WinXP Pro machines
that connect to a fileserver running WinXP Pro. I am well aware of
the ten-connection limit, and the issue that I have is that by running
the 'net sessions' I see a number of the workstations creating and
holding on to sessions that are using one file or none.

What are those apparently useless connections doing, and is there a
way I can either eliminate them or minimize their timeouts?

Thank you in advance,
--
Isaac Grover, Owner
Quality Computer Services of River Falls, Wisconsin
Web: http://www.qcs-rf.com

Isaac Grover <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Good morning from Wisconsin,
>
> I am responsible for administering a network of 13 WinXP Pro machines
> that connect to a fileserver running WinXP Pro. I am well aware of
> the ten-connection limit, and the issue that I have is that by running
> the 'net sessions' I see a number of the workstations creating and
> holding on to sessions that are using one file or none.
>
> What are those apparently useless connections doing, and is there a
> way I can either eliminate them or minimize their timeouts?
>
> Thank you in advance,

Don't confuse the number of client computers with the number of network
connections. One computer may easily have more than one connection open to
your "server" at any given moment. You can't control that. This may not be
what you want to hear, but as you're already aware of the connection limit,
the real answer is simply to stop trying to use XP as a server. It's a
losing battle otherwise...even with fewer than 10 workstations.

Now, if I had to administer that many workstations I'd sure as h_ll want an
AD domain rather than a workgroup (look at SBS2003 for an affordable and
easy to use option) but if you don't care about that, look at a simple NAS
box or storage server of some kind...perhaps a Linux file server.

On Feb 29, 3:28 pm, "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"
<lanwe...@heybuddy.donotsendme.unsolicitedmailatyahoo.com> wrote:
> Isaac Grover <isaac.gro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Good morning from Wisconsin,
>
> > I am responsible for administering a network of 13 WinXP Pro machines
> > that connect to a fileserver running WinXP Pro. I am well aware of
> > the ten-connection limit, and the issue that I have is that by running
> > the 'net sessions' I see a number of the workstations creating and
> > holding on to sessions that are using one file or none.
>
> > What are those apparently useless connections doing, and is there a
> > way I can either eliminate them or minimize their timeouts?
>
> > Thank you in advance,
>
> Don't confuse the number of client computers with the number of network
> connections. One computer may easily have more than one connection open to
> your "server" at any given moment. You can't control that. This may not be
> what you want to hear, but as you're already aware of the connection limit,
> the real answer is simply to stop trying to use XP as a server. It's a
> losing battle otherwise...even with fewer than 10 workstations.
>
> Now, if I had to administer that many workstations I'd sure as h_ll want an
> AD domain rather than a workgroup (look at SBS2003 for an affordable and
> easy to use option) but if you don't care about that, look at a simple NAS
> box or storage server of some kind...perhaps a Linux file server.

Thank you for the advice. After beating my head against a wall using
registry tweaks on both server and workstations, a patch from
lvllord.de, and adjusting TTLs on the machines, I'm done trying to get
around this. A proposal for a real server is now in the works.

--
Isaac Grover, Owner
Quality Computer Services of River Falls, Wisconsin
Web: http://www.qcs-rf.com

Isaac Grover <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> On Feb 29, 3:28 pm, "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"
> <lanwe...@heybuddy.donotsendme.unsolicitedmailatyahoo.com> wrote:
>> Isaac Grover <isaac.gro...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Good morning from Wisconsin,
>>
>>> I am responsible for administering a network of 13 WinXP Pro
>>> machines that connect to a fileserver running WinXP Pro. I am well
>>> aware of the ten-connection limit, and the issue that I have is
>>> that by running the 'net sessions' I see a number of the
>>> workstations creating and holding on to sessions that are using one
>>> file or none.
>>
>>> What are those apparently useless connections doing, and is there a
>>> way I can either eliminate them or minimize their timeouts?
>>
>>> Thank you in advance,
>>
>> Don't confuse the number of client computers with the number of
>> network connections. One computer may easily have more than one
>> connection open to your "server" at any given moment. You can't
>> control that. This may not be what you want to hear, but as you're
>> already aware of the connection limit, the real answer is simply to
>> stop trying to use XP as a server. It's a losing battle
>> otherwise...even with fewer than 10 workstations.
>>
>> Now, if I had to administer that many workstations I'd sure as h_ll
>> want an AD domain rather than a workgroup (look at SBS2003 for an
>> affordable and easy to use option) but if you don't care about that,
>> look at a simple NAS box or storage server of some kind...perhaps a
>> Linux file server.
>
> Thank you for the advice. After beating my head against a wall using
> registry tweaks on both server and workstations, a patch from
> lvllord.de, and adjusting TTLs on the machines, I'm done trying to get
> around this. A proposal for a real server is now in the works.

Good lad. Sometimes it's just time. Good luck....