>We all wish we had the large coporations as clients. Truth is some of smaller clients require help. BTW I'am familiar with the client's environment and at the moment it does'nt include a server. There is 4 computer stations connected p2p and six months ago there were NONE. I cannot compare this setup to a large coporation. I just thought there was solution via code since I'm a programmer.

Hi Mike and PMFJI,

You shouldn't get defensive about this. I don't see your client having to spend the $30,000 you keep referring to.

Your statement about now being 4 connected computer where there was none six months ago. Is that due to growth or they had the four computers as standalones?

If it's growth, you owe it to YOURSELF to tell this client to get a dedicated server. If I were you I'd be willing to have that machine be just another win98 box, but if the user count is growing, you will have a horrible time in a year. I have a client who went from 2 PC's to 20 in 6 years, and since Novell was overkill for anything under 5 machines, we used Lantastic. It took all that time and pretty much an ultimatum from me to go to Novell because as far as he could tell "lantastic was working". But even in that peer to peer environment, we did have a dedicated server when we hit 8 or 10 users (can't remember).

Having a user machine as the server means that if that user locks up his/her computer, the whole office goes down. Believe me, you don't want this.

Like Ed suggested, perhaps it would be a good idea to bring in a consultant that specializes in networking to look at the situation and toss ideas.

Regards!

Alex