There is a small office that consists of 5 computers, but the manager told me that her computer is the “main computer,” which acts as a server even though it has Windows XP Professional. The main confusing thing is the device that she is using to network them all together.
She is using a multi-port device, which faces the internet. Is this device a hub or a switch, or something entirely different. It was from Dell.
More than likely it’s a router which is controlling access through it to the internet and assigning addresses to the clients on the LAN via DHCP.
XP pro will allow up to ten simultaneous inbound connections, so with 4 other systems, the ‘main computer’ could easily support file services to the other systems on the network. This type of network is the original form of ‘peer to peer’ networking.
the multi-port device probably a router. It has a WAN port that is connected to the Internet and 4-5 data ports.
The network does not need a Windows Server Operating System to function. You can have a “Workgroup” of computers. The Main Computer is probably sharing files and printers. In a workgroup, you have to create User accounts on each computer and setup the permissions on the “main” computer to allow Everyone or create the same user accounts on it.
In a Domain, using the Windows Server OS, you can create domain accounts and add all computers to the domain. This makes administration and assigning permissions much easier.
The small office doesn’t need a special server. They want to keep it simple.
It is probably a switch or a router (routers being most common now)— no one in their right mind will use a hub anymore. Routers and switches are able to allow every computer to share the full bandwidth from the internet without splitting/dividing the bandwidth. A hub divides the bandwidth between tne computers.
I have a Dell Precision 650 Dual Xeon 2.4GHZ 2GB 36GB scsi server with a XP Pro COA (older computer of course), so even a XP computer can be used as a server. It doesn’t have all of the server functions of a regular server , but it does have some.
That multi-port device can be a Switch or even a hub.
to sharing an Internet connection just only one computer (xp,…) must connected to Internet by modem, or wireless; you can share that connection by using Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) service on that NIC that connected to internal network.