>>I am writing a small multi-user app (VFP) - starting with 2 workstations - then moving to 3 or 4 (max). I was planning on running this app on a peer-to-peer network - at least until I thumbed through some threads here on the UT.
>>
>>Some of these threads go back a while. Does anyone have any recent
>>experience with peer-to-peer (Win98 2nd Edition or NT Workstation 4.0?).
>>
>>My major concern here is data corruption. I plan to battery backup
>>all of the peers and am willing to put NT (W2K?) on each if necessary.
>>Each client will run its own copy of the app, write its work files
>>locally ... The "server" peer will be a new one (PIII-500 or better)
>>and will only share the data files. What I'd like to avoid is
>>(at least initially) maintaining a dedicated server box for 2 clients.
>>I don't ever see this app expanding beyond 3-4 clients (this is
>>my wife's business and we don't want it to get any bigger than that).
>>
>>NT Workstation would obviously be more stable and I presume would provide some protection against killing the network if, for instance, VFP or Word locks up. Is its peer networking also more robust than Win98?
>>
>>Appreciate any insight. I'd like to proceed with this project, but want to pin down some costs first.
>
>The cost difference in NT Server and workstation shouldn't be that great for NT Server and 5 licenses. It's the only way to go.

I disagree. From a technology standpoint, NTWS is the same as NTServer. Unless you need to run an app that is Server-specific (Exchange Server, etc.) there's no reason to install NTServer on a small LAN.

Running NTWS on all 3 or 4 LAN PCs will give you a more robust and stable network than running NTServer on one and W9x on the others, at less cost.