Not sure exactly what you're after here, Jim, but I'm willing to put in my CAN$0.02.

As I see it, "limitations" in MS OSs in peer-to-peer mode fall into 2 categories:

- Marketing
- Technological

Technological
A high-performance, concurrent-use database is one of the most complex applications that can be run on a computer network. VFP is arguably one of the most demanding database apps in existence:

- since there is no centralized database server a la SQL Server, it depends on reliable and correct network file opening and file and record locking. As many users have found, a hiccup or crash on the server or any workstation can cause data loss and/or file corruption.
- VFP uses advanced techniques such as workstation caching to increase performance.
- VFP has a long history of being resource-intensive, and will often cause flaws in video and printer drivers etc. to appear that don't show up under "normal use".

For maximum VFP reliability you want your entire network to be as reliable as possible. I can't think of any other application that is more dependent than VFP on overall network reliability, for long-term successful operation.

My personal experiences as a network installer and administrator have shown that the "business" line of MS OSs (NT, W2K, XP) are much more reliable than the "consumer" OSs (W95, W98, WMe). The business OSs were designed from the ground up for enterprise-level reliability, supporting features like the NTFS file system and SCSI/RAID disk subsystems.

However, choice of workstation and server OSs is only part of the equation for overall network reliability. Other issues that must be addressed include:

- Clean, reliable electrical power to both computers and network infrastructure
- Properly spec'd and installed network cabling and switches/hubs
- Computers that have been adequately spec'd for their respective tasks
- Proper and complete installation and configuration of all computer OSs
- Proper and complete configuration of networking
- Proper and complete installation and configuration of user applications
- Good network administration and support - to fix small problems before they grow large, and to prevent others from happening at all.

Another thing not to be overlooked is the client's attitude. Again, in my experience clients to whom I have been able to sell the "reliability/quality" pitch will usually pay for NT/W2K/XP, UPSs, better-quality computers and the time required to dot the i's and cross the t's in putting it all together. Put simply, they get what they pay for - a better, more reliable computing experience.

Marketing
The distinction between MS's "workstation" and "server" products is mostly artificial/marketing driven. In the *n?x world there really is no such distinction - you add or remove services as required, from any machine; the code base is the same. MS's business OSs also share a mostly common code base. IIRC, there even used to be an automated hack that could turn an NT4 Workstation into an NT4 Server - it was just some registry changes.

MS Marketing must have viewed W2K's Active Directory as a godsend; at last they had something concrete they could point to that W2KPro didn't have/couldn't do and for which they could charge extra. Other than that, the products are much the same - NTFS and other advanced file system support, multiprocessor (SMP) support, support for RAID, same TCP/IP stack, same Services, redirectors, etc. MS's "workstation" products are mostly just "throttled" versions of their "server" OSs, especially from the perspective of a file-server based product like VFP:

- Maximum simultaneous network connections limited to 10
- Certain MS products will install only on a "server" e.g. Exchange Server. There is no technological reason it wouldn't run on W2KPro, it just does a version check at installation.
- Windows "Browse Master"-related issues. On a peer-to-peer network of homogeneous OSs, the browse master may be different machines from day to day. This may cause temporary issues if the browse master crashes. A Server may be running exactly the same networking-related code but because it reports a more senior "version" it becomes a browse master on the network. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q102878&

Except for the 10-connection limit, running VFP against a W2KPro "server" is no different from running it against a W2KServer "server" - their SMB servers are identical. So, the reliability of the two products acting as servers in a small environment should be identical, as well.

From a networking standpoint VFP will work against anything that implements a compatible SMB server - that can be through a network client/redirector (e.g. Novell) or directly (e.g. Samba on Linux). Microsoft sets the standard in the SMB world, it's up to the other guys to emulate it properly. I've seen Novell Client32 cause problems on a Novell network, and also an updated version of Samba on Debian (which was, amongst other things, supposed to fix problems with FoxPro clients!)



Again, I don't know if you are interested in product "limitations" or really in maximizing reliability, but in either case this is my take!