Setting up a Network [resolved]

Recently I helped a buddy setup a network for his business. It was basically 2 Microsoft XP computers connected together through the home network function that is available with XP. Well needless to say my buddies business grew. Now he is going to be moving to a new location and is going to need to have a network of about 6 computers set up. Can someone give me some info on where I should start and what is the best way to tackle this job. We currently have the 2 computers connected through a dsl router. What needs to be done with 6 computers? All suggestions are welcome. But some of the things that I need. All computers need to access info on one harddrive, or in one location, since all workers will share the same data. Are there any programs that I need to make this as simple as possible? Can I still network all of them using the XP home network function. What obsticules do I face? Let me know how I can complete this, since I have never done something like this.

Thanks to all that reply.

XP Home falls flat on its face when you try anything more than trivial networking stuff. You would be better served by either using 2000 or XP Professional for the client machines. If your DSL router has enough ports you can simply connect all the machines to that or if not you may need to buy a switch and connect everything (including DSL router) into that.

If you are going to have user profiles and data shared all across the network then you may want to look at using one machine as a dedicated server. You do not need third party software to do this.

Yes, like PG posted, XP Home is basically useless. You can workgroup them together but for 6 systems you will definately want to upgrade them to XP Pro.

Also, one system will need to be the central system that will share all files to the other systems. One that is not used by any users.

If hes got a budget then you should get a server and server OS software. A decent switch with at least 8 ports, as they come in increments of 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32.

I actually may have misread the OP as it does not specifically say which version of XP it is, I read "XP home network" as XP Home :)

True, as both XP Home and Pro both have the Network Task link "Set up a home or small office network."

pg and Rob seemed to have covered the networking basics, so I'd like to address the data side.

Presuming you go with a dedicated network file server, I assume the data store will reside there and all the client machines will use it. What are you using at the moment for a database? If it is MS Access, then I would remind that Access has a tendency to not play nice in a multiuser environment. Database corruption is not only not uncommon, it is likely. As his business grows, Repair and Compacts will become more and more frequent and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the entire database could become unusable thus requireing the restoration of a backup (which I would do daily) on a more frequent basis.

Perhaps looking into something my MySQL, or MSDE as a database upgrade would be worth mentioning to your buddy.

Sorry guys but I forgot to post that the Current systems are using Windows XP Pro, and I anticipate the additional computers to use the same system. They are all going to share printers. The data that is going to be shared is basically text files in, word docs, etc. There is no database, that they will be using.

What do you guys mean by a dedicated network file server. How much do these run for? How do they work?

A dedicated server can be any machine that is configured correctly and is permanently on and connected to the network, and does nothing else except server tasks. If you have a Windows Server OS (2003 at least I know has this, not sure about 2000) you can add "roles" to it and one of them is "File Server". This auto configures the box to allow file sharing and multiple users accessing it. If you would rather use one of the XP boxes as a server (and not necessarily a dedicated one) you can do that too by manually setting up folder shares. These can then be accessed by anyone on the network, either through "My Network Places" or by mapping a network drive.

If you are to share printers you can also do this by physically connecting them to the server and accessing them from client machines over the network. If you have printers attached to different client machines it is slightly messy as you have to find the machine with the printer you are looking for, but that can be done as well. Once your network is set up there is a tool in Windows that lets you search for printers and machines on the network.

Not only do you get all the PG mentioned, you get centralized user account management. Create the user accounts on the server using Active Directory and the user accounts are available from anywhere on the network.

Without a central user database - one simple change of someones password can almost criple you...

I didnt even think of the complications that might occur when someone changes their password.

But now I do have a pretty good understanding of what I need to do.

Thanks to all that replied.