rescue me from my self-dug hole!

follier

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Anyone have a knotted rope?

Basically here is my problem --

I work in a small computer lab in a school, where results to tests and practices are saved to a office computer's hard-drive for easy grading (and saving). The problem?

We recently upgraded to WinXP Home (yeah I know... Home.. but I'm not in charge of finances lol). I have a XP home machine sharing folders with 16 other XP home machines.
Now if more than 3 students try to access a test or program at the same time, they get that "too many connections" error we saw so much of in SP1.

Those of you who are experienced are probably getting a good laugh out of this, but I (who am spoiled to the unrivaled functionality of Win98) honestly did not see this problem coming.

Do I need to make a dedicated server? Should I be using special software aside from the standard windows File Sharing? Any other ideas?

Any help is greatly appreciated -- our classes have 15 students each so 3 connecting at a time isn't gonna cut it.
 
you have amaximum of three connections on windows XP home, there are no hacks or work arounds.

it won't matter what software you run as this connection limit is in the OS rather than a file sharing part of it...

I suggest, since you are only using XP home to host a file (the program can't be being run on the server as in the terminal server way of runnig things) (I digress) I suggest that you go to the redhat site, download fedora
and set up a samba server.
this samba server will talk effortlessly with windows XP home (OK not effortlessly but once it's set up you needn't touch it again).
and there will be no connection limit...

also future upgrades will be free...

and you can have a 17th lab machine if you want as well since you can remove the XP license from that machine...

(sorry I couldn't be more helpfull but the problem really is with the home part of the xp bit)
 
Thanks so much for your advice!

I was considering Samba.. I'm familiar with it since we use it at home to share music etc with our neighbors ;) on FC4 no less.

Unfortunately I will be leaving this job in a few months and my colleages (who are for the most part luddite english teachers) will kill me if I leave them with a linux server.

I'll try to sell them on it though (given that it's the only option I know of).
 
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