users limitation in Win XP Home

[hiwatt]

I have a running five machines (all Win XP Home) and one
of them acts as a server for a particular program. There
are two routers involved and all machines can access the
Internet. It seems only three machines at a time can
access the database on the 'server'. The fourth machine
get an error saying that the max number of connections
have been used (or some such message). I can't get
anything but 'simple sharing' going...no advanced. Would
a Win XP Pro upgrade on the server allow more users? Can
I configure XP Home to allow more users at a time?
I know one of you brainiacs knows this one.
Thanks

 

[Bob Cerelli]

Pretty sure there is a 5 connection limit with XP Home
XP Pro has 10.
More and you'll need either Win9x or Server.

Bob Cerelli
http://www.onecomputerguy.com

 

[Rob Schneider]

Home has a limit of 5 connections, and XP allows 10. I don't know how
the connections are counted, but you've apparently hit the limit.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms

 

[allan grossman [mvp]]

They're counted by *connection*, not by user or
workstation count.

As an example, if you have an XP Home machine sharing a
printer and a remote workstation has two shared files
open, the machine using the shares is using three
connections, not one.

Hope this helps -

 

[Steve Winograd [MVP]]

They're counted by *connection*, not by user or
workstation count.

As an example, if you have an XP Home machine sharing a
printer and a remote workstation has two shared files
open, the machine using the shares is using three
connections, not one.

Hope this helps -

Are you sure about that, Allan? I just looked at this Microsoft
Knowledge Base article:

Inbound Connections Limit in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314882

Here's an excerpt from it:

"All logical drive, logical printer, and transport level connections
combined from a single computer are considered to be one session;
therefore, these connections only count as one connection in the ten-
connection limit. For example, if a user establishes two logical drive
connections, two Windows sockets, and one logical printer connection
to a Windows XP system, one session is established. As a result, there
will be only one less connection that can be made to the Windows XP
system, even though three logical connections have been established."

I haven't done any testing to see if the article is right.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com

 

[Bob Cerelli]

You might want to double check this.

I just made 24 connections to my XP Pro computer (12 each from two different
other computers).

Bob Cerelli
http://www.onecomputerguy.com

 

[Jonathan]

I think the two routers you've specified count as the other two

 

[Bob Willard]

I think the two routers you've specified count as the other two

Uh, no; routers do not normally create connections to PCs.
For example, my home LAN currently has 5 connections from 5 PCs
to one of my XP HE PCs, and all use the router for web access
(and N-1 of them use DHCP). All 5 connections concurrently work
(for R/W access), and when I attempt to create a 6th, it is rejected.

Also, most of the 5 connections support access to both a shared
folder and a shared printer on that target XP HE PC -- demonstrating
that the connection limit is based on PCs, not on resources.