Setting up a client-server network

[shihalud]

I have inherited a peer-to-peer network and I want to set up a client-server network instead. I have six computers (4 wired 2 wireless). The operating systems range from windows 2000, XP, vista, and windows 7. I have NT4 to use as the server OS - can I use this with all of the operating systems I have? Or is there a better solution. Money is an issue. Thanks

[Doc Brown]

First, this is the wrong forum. It should be under Servers.

You can use NT, though I'm not 100% sure that a Windows 7 PC can join an NT domain. I personally think that you might as well just stay on a peer to peer network. While you can probably get everything to work, NT 4.0 is no longer supported and is so out of date that any advantages to going with a Windows domain will be far out weighed by potential incompatibility issues. I do know that NT GPO is an entirely different animal in NT 4.0 that it is in later OSes, so if you do plan on using it, you'll be VERY limited in what you can do. I'm not sure about anyone else on WSL, but I haven't supported NT 4.0 for over 10 years, and I recall very little of of the finer points of the OS. My point being that you may not find very much help here, or else where on the Internet should you run into problems. You would be better off using a Windows 7 PC as a peer to peer server.

[Paul T]

I would also stick to peer to peer and use the W7 PC as the file server - assuming it is the most modern computer and it is wired.
I would spend some money on an external disk to use as a backup for the server. You want a network connected disk, something like these.
Synology Disk Station
Buffalo LinkStation
QNAP NAS

cheers, Paul

[shihalud]

Thank you for your help - I will stick with the peer-to-peer and yes the newest machine is windows 7 and is wired. Can I hide the individual pc from the other machines like I could in NT?

[Paul T]

You can't really hide the machine once it's on the network, especially if you map a drive to it. Just create a sharing user with minimum access and set the permissions on the shared folder so that user has change access.

cheers, Paul