Al Doman's comments on reliability are right on the money, IMO. I always recommend NT based products (except XP Home) for my clients. $100 extra for XPPro over 98/ME is a small price to pay for the added reliability.

I just want to point out, however, that a Win98/ME p2p network can be remarkably stable IF and ONLY IF the "server" machine is NOT used regularly as a workstation and "junk software" (fancy screen savers, games, Internet weather monitors, etc.) is not installed on it! I have many clients with 2 to 5 workstation shops using Win98 p2p with minimal problems. When they run into problems, it is almost always because they were either "temporarily" using the "server" as a workstation for "a few months" or running WinFAX on it.

It is nearly impossible to convince a really small business that they should buy a real server or even dedicate one desktop to being a full-time "server" in a 2 - 3 workstation shop. In that case, I push REALLY hard for NT/2000/XPPro for AT LEAST the machine they want to use as a "server". Also, I try to get them to invest in a faster machine for the "server" and/or make it the least used machine (a hard sell, that!).

If they have 5 or more workstation, I push really hard for a real, dedicated server. Good, relatively inexpensive Win2k servers are availble from major compainies with IDE drives and Travan (Ugh! Spit, spit!) tape drives that can keep costs down for my clients that are really reaching for that server. (We can replace the Travan tape drive when it dies its usual early death with a DAT drive and a cheap SCSI controller.) I can then setup WINS (much better than NetBIOS browsing) and DHCP for them and can run server products such as Fax servers.

In a small, "freindly" shop where the client doesn't want to be bothered with real security, peer-to-peer can help keep their consulting costs down too. Most people running small networks don't want to become domain administrators and many can't afford a lot of consulting work to support a domain. With p2p they have a real server with as many licenses as they need and the reliability and speed of a real server without the complexity of a domain.

Above 10 or so workstations, the cost of setting up a simple domain is small compared to the overall costs of running the shop and is generally worth the trouble.

**** Small Business Client Philosophy Aside:

I try not to get in my small clients' faces too much about spending more money than they feel they can really afford because I have seen too many really small busineses go under partly because they couldn't afford the absurd cost of 5-year leases on dream systems of 5 workstations and a domain server that some storefront talked them into, compounded by the consulting costs of maintaining a domain in a small shop. Often, upgrading systems one or two at a time in a p2p network, as they could afford the purchases, would have been sufficient.

Later, when the businesses are doing better financially, my small clients are appreciative that I helped keep their costs down and ask my help upgrading their systems to their dream systems. I've seen a lot of my peers go under because they over-sold to small businesses here and were not asked back when the businesses survived and were ready to upgrade. Of course, businesses that don't survive don't provide return business.

But then, this is a small town, not The Big City. I can't speak to that environment.