Will XP & 98 conflict?

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Guest

Hi!

My boss is getting bad advice, I think. We have a small medical office
(lots of sensitive information), 2 computers, networked and sharing a
printer. He doesn't want to network both on XP, but leave the second
computer on Windows '98. (A relative is advising him to save money and not
buy 2 copies of XP.) Doesn't XP Professional allow for networking? Is this
going to cause huge OS conflicts, or worse, if we run one machine on 98 and
the other one on XP? We share all files and a couple of essential programs.
HELP!
 
Hi!

My boss is getting bad advice, I think. We have a small medical office
(lots of sensitive information), 2 computers, networked and sharing a
printer. He doesn't want to network both on XP, but leave the second
computer on Windows '98. (A relative is advising him to save money and not
buy 2 copies of XP.) Doesn't XP Professional allow for networking? Is this
going to cause huge OS conflicts, or worse, if we run one machine on 98 and
the other one on XP? We share all files and a couple of essential programs.
HELP!
Click to expand...

Jane,

Windows 98 and XP will work quite well together.
<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...db-aef8-4bef-925e-7ac9be791028&DisplayLang=en>
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/06/file-sharing-under-windows-xp.html>

There is one known conflict, the browser, which populates Network Neighborhood.
But this is not an uncorrectable problem.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/windows-9x-9598me-and-browser.html>
 
Jane said:
Hi!

My boss is getting bad advice, I think. We have a small medical office
(lots of sensitive information), 2 computers, networked and sharing a
printer. He doesn't want to network both on XP, but leave the second
computer on Windows '98. (A relative is advising him to save money and not
buy 2 copies of XP.) Doesn't XP Professional allow for networking? Is this
going to cause huge OS conflicts, or worse, if we run one machine on 98 and
the other one on XP? We share all files and a couple of essential programs.
HELP!
Click to expand...

XP and W9x can easily share files & folders. Those two OSs do use different
file protection mechanisms, but it won't take long to get used to that.

XP and W9x share most, but not all printers. Printer sharing depends on
the device drivers, which are the responsibility of the printer vendors, and
some printer vendors do not support sharing printers between XP and W9x.

Sharing applications is problematic. Many apps need to be installed on
each PC, and many require individual licenses for each PC on which they
run. Some apps will run on both XP and W9x; some will run only on XP; some
will run on W9x but will only run on XP using compatibility mode. Many apps,
particularly older ones, will not run correctly on shared files and file
corruption may occur when multiple copies of an app (or multiple apps) are
concurrently updating a shared file.

Finally, XP PRO does support networking. And, so does the (cheaper) XP
Home Edition; XP HE may suffice for your small workgroup network. For a
business, I do suggest replacing W9x with XP (HE or PRO) to make networking
easier and because XP is more robust than W9x.
 
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