Let me modify, clarify, and better spell a link from late June cited by linney under my pen:
. Connections
you can accept from other machines: XP Home: 5 connections; XP Pro: 10 connections.
From either XP OS, there is no limit other than the alphabet to the connections
you can make. (And there are several ways around the alphabet for devices).
. Connection limits may surprise you, as they are unlikely counted by XP the way you would. Fom a workstation: you can connect to 15 folder shares on the "server", and 3 network printers hosted on the "server" and it all counts as one connection, the way in which it counts.
I have a workgroup settig with 80 clients that does not requre in the logon script connections to every share in the world. Most workstations need a connection to a printer sharing computer (there are several), and a file sharing "server" depending on department. But there are never more than 10 workstations connecting to any share server resource because of departments in this setting.
To exceed 10 connections as counted by the OS
. Use Windows 98SE; or bite the bullet and do a full Win2k/ or Windows 2003 server. (Avoid Windows ME)
There are a lot of departmental file and printer servers still running Windows 98SE as an alternative to the license restrictions of XP or going to a full Server OS implementation.
There is no 10 user limit on workgroup connections under Windows 9x.
. There is Linux with SAMBA, and it does work. But this is decidedly non-trivial as a solution if you have no Linux experience. But the Linux with SAMBA solution does work, and is free. As a start, I would purchase the modestly priced Red-Hat or other commercial packages for Linux because the installation and maintenance tools have been simplified for Workgroups and new-to-Linux administrators. An experienced Windows hand should be able to sort a Linux w/SAMBA workgroup solution using an inexpensive package from Red-Hat or others.
. You could use "Virtual" solutions. Using the Microsoft Virtual PC or VMWARE, add a Win9x Virtual PC console to the machine to handle the shares.
See:
. Finally, you could fiddle with the default connection limits. If the user needs only occasional and not persistent connections to a shared resource:
. do not map the share in the logon
. if you have to use the logon script, make sure the syntax is:
net use x: \\share_server\share_name /Persistent:No
If the connection is unused for the idle time (see the link), it will be disconnected automaticly and available as a legal resource for another workstation. Now the link:
But the connection is not lost forever:
and note:
Bill Castner
