small office network

[aldug]

I am doing some work for a small office which just recently went from 9
computers to 11 computers. Currently, they have a computer running
windows 2000 professional as a fileserver. Now that the network has
increased to 11 computers, they are over the 10 connection limit in
win2k and are getting errors. I assume my only choice is to upgrade
the server to small business server 2003 and create a domain. Do I
have any other options?

Since this will be a truly client-server configuration, are individual
clients still able to share file and printers so other clients can
access them. The office network works really nicely now in workgroup
mode, what other "features" will be lost by converting it to a domain?

 

[Steve Parry]

I am doing some work for a small office which just recently went from 9
computers to 11 computers. Currently, they have a computer running
windows 2000 professional as a fileserver. Now that the network has
increased to 11 computers, they are over the 10 connection limit in
win2k and are getting errors. I assume my only choice is to upgrade
the server to small business server 2003 and create a domain. Do I
have any other options?

Since this will be a truly client-server configuration, are individual
clients still able to share file and printers so other clients can
access them. The office network works really nicely now in workgroup
mode, what other "features" will be lost by converting it to a domain?

The existing clients will still be able to share out their drives/folders
etc, with the added benefit of greater security.

I cannot think of any "features" that would be lost but there would be a few
enhancments.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

In

I am doing some work for a small office which just recently went from
9 computers to 11 computers. Currently, they have a computer running
windows 2000 professional as a fileserver. Now that the network has
increased to 11 computers, they are over the 10 connection limit in
win2k and are getting errors. I assume my only choice is to upgrade
the server to small business server 2003 and create a domain. Do I
have any other options?

Yes, but any MS one will be more expensive. You ought to look into SBS; it
includes Exchange and all sorts of other goodies like RWW that you wouldn't
get in the regular W2003 server product. I didn't like any prior versions of
SBS but am sold on this one for small networks.

Since this will be a truly client-server configuration, are individual
clients still able to share file and printers so other clients can
access them.

Yes, but why on earth would you want to do that? Get decent server hardware
and store everything centrally on the server. Don't store or share any local
data Treat workstations as interchangeable objects, and standardize them &
lock them down - if you use folder redirection & roaming profiles, users
will be able to log into to any workstation and be presented with the same
environment.

The office network works really nicely now in workgroup
mode, what other "features" will be lost by converting it to a domain?

Presuming your workstations all use wither Win2k Pro or, ideally, WinXP Pro
(and hence can join the domain - nothing, really, except that users will be
logging into the domain instead of the local workstation.

I think it's much better; you can centralize your admin & security, backups,
mail, whatnot. I don't like workgroups beyond a handful of computers on a
SOHO network...

If you don't have SBS experience you ought to play with it on a test network
first. Even if you follow all the wizards & to do lists (which you must do),
there's still a lot you could inadvertently botch. I'd sub to
microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs and poke around in there and ask any
questions you have of of the SBS gurus.