Hi Al,

Thanks for taking the time and preparing a very thoughtful answer. If I had the cash reserves, I would buy up a bunch of these Dell systems with XP but I guess the better approach would be to thoroughly test out the peer to peer on VISTA SP1.

For our next system upgrade, we have plans for the work stations to run "independently" updating the "server" with sales data periodically in the background so maybe the peer to peer issues will be less of a concern.

Thanks,

Ken

>>Hi,
>>
>>We sell our POS application complete with hardware. We use dbf's for data storage. For our larger clients (more than three workstations) we include a real file server, but for the smaller stores, we use peer to peer networking, relying on Windows XP. This set up has served us well but soon we will not be able to get our computers (we use Dell Optiplex) with XP.
>>
>>I may be wrong, but I think I heard that VISTA does not handle file locking/updates correctly in a peer to peer environment. If that is the case, what is the recommended course of action?
>
>Apparently there was a serious problem with Vista RTM: http://fox.wikis.com/wc.dll?Wiki~WindowsVistaFileLockingBug~VFP
>
>It's worth noting that this is only with SMB2, which (at this time) only happens between Vista machines running peer-to-peer.
>
>There was a hotfix available, MSKB#935366. This hotfix apparently is now included in Vista SP1: http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/20184cb6-7038-4e82-a32c-4bc10ffe56ab1033.mspx?mfr=true
>
>Since it's officially included in SP1, it would be nice to think MS has fully regression tested it and it has fixed the issues. Nonetheless it would be interesting for someone to test this - pound on it with a busy VFP app and see what happens ;)
>
>Other possibilities:
>
>- get a good NAS box; you'd need to test extensively, of course
>- along the same lines, I'm wondering if Windows Home Server can support a multiuser VFP app - after searching the web for half an hour I still can't find a straight answer. Anyone know about this?
>- buy up a bunch of XP retail licenses before time runs out :)
>
>One option you might want to look closely at would be setting up a W2K3 (or, soon W2K8) Terminal Server with thin client terminals (e.g. Wyse). I'd think this would be very attractive for someone like yourself bundling a complete hardware/software solution:
>
>- high performance and reliability, little dependence on network infrastructure
>- centrally managed, can be locked down to prevent installation of unauthorized apps
>- thin client terminals invulnerable to infection by any sort of malware
>- easier to include reliability features such as centralized backup, RAID1 for disk(s), etc.
>
>As an aside, it's too bad SBS 2003 licensing specifically prevents running TS sessions on an SBS server, SBS is a very good deal and its unique Remote Web Workplace (RWW) is practically worth the price of admission all by itself.