How Many users can Window 98 handle?

[menstroy]

I am using a Windows 98 machine as a file server, the reason is because it is my understanding Win98 does not have a 10 user limite like Windows Pro and XP Pro.

My question is, how can I determine the work-load on the machine? How many users can a P3 with 256mg ram using win98 handle, if it just being used as a file server?

 

[jrbarnett]

There are many programs available to measure the workload (Process Viewer from Systems Internals, and Wintop from the Windows 95 Kernel toys is reported to work well on Windows 98 even though it was not designed to operate on that particular OS.

What I would say, however, is that the NT family systems (Windows NT, 2000, XP, 2003) are far more robust, so if you are having more than 10 concurrent users, I would strongly recommend one of the proper server operating systems rather than using a workstation OS as a server. If you can't afford the licenses for the Microsoft server systems, try using Linux or similar.
Remember that the FAT32 file system in 98 has no security whatsoever, and that the other security features in the OS are easily overcome.

John

 

[tviman]

Adding to John's post, a lot of it depends on the type of "client/server" application you're using - in other words, if you have a 5 user application then the 6th user will be blocked from the application. This will hold true with any platform.

There's always a better way. The fun is trying to find it!

 

[TekTippy4U]

Better Hardware = Better performance as well.....RAID or SATA or ATA/133....along the Linux lines and prolly not the Serverware you need, but to get an idea....you can d/l Knoppix full d/l and run it from CD that you burn....no installation

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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