Re: upgrading frm XP Home to Pro

Michelle_j_r wrote:
Shenan wrote:
- OEM licensed CDs cannot perform upgrades.

- Why do you think you need Windows XP Professional?
- Advanced networking/user control?
- Domain joining ability?
- File and folder encryption (EFS)?

Michelle_j_r wrote:
we have just bought a server to network the computers and so i can
access them remotely. I bought the server from Dell and i
explained what we were doing to the sales guy and he said it
would work... another guy that is here installing it said it
won't and we need to upgrade all the computers to Pro.

But it seems upgrades are no longer available and we need to get
full OEM disks or something???? (it's all beyond me!) but that
means totally rebooting our computers and loosing the current
installs etc.

Frustrating and expensive! Is it correct that we can't upgrade?
Will Windows SBS work with XP Home????

I am coming out of this more confused than before I asked the
original questions...

You bought a server to 'network your computers' and so you can
'access them remotely'? You can likely connect to them remotely
already (with a little effort) - no need for a server, etc. For
windows XP Home Edition - a product called 'UltraVNC' (free
software) would give you the same abilities as 'Remote Desktop'
would in Windows XP Professional. Windows XP Home Edition can
easily be networked in a way that allows them to share files and
interact with one another in a home/business. And as you
mentioned only three computers - you aren't even coming up against
any real limitations yet.

There has to be more to this story than 'network your computers'
and 'access them remotely' - or a server is overkill in my opinion.


i don't know a lot about computers- just the very basic basics! I
told a saleperson what i wanted (two different companies actually
to get comparison quotes) and they both said i'd need a server.
That we needed a static IP so we could log onto our computers from
different locations.

I know there is software that lets you use your computer from
another computer as if you were actually there (ie, your mouse
moves around on the unattended computer etc). I am not sure how
they plan to give me access from different locations but apparently
with the server we just log on as a user no matter where we are and
all our stuff is there..??

Albeit that
Windows XP Professional gives you a bit more control over such
things. It's true that if you plan on connecting the machines to
a domain and not a workgroup - you will need Windows XP
Professional over Windows XP Home. However - you haven't given
enough information for me to know why you would 1) need a server
and 2) need a domain environment. You have gone and mentioned
Windows Small Business Server even - so am I to assume this is to
startup a business?


it's an existing small business and as i am pregnant and want to
work from home for a while i want to access my computer and my
dad's computer at the office. SBS is what i was told i needed....??




Please explain what your purpose is for 'networking the computers'
and 'accessing them remotely' in detail.
- Is this for a business or a home network?
- What will you be using the server for? Will it be a 'file
server'? Will it be an 'email server'? Will it be a server
providing and centrally maintaining the updates for the other
machines? Will it be a 'web host server'?

we are copying all our files onto the server so all the quotes that
dad and i do are saved in the one spot on one computer. It will
also do the email thing (we did not need that but apparently it
manages it anyway). Not sure about updates??? We will make a
webpage but i bought a domain so i think it's hosted there anyway.




- Why do you need to remotely connect to the three machines from
the original posting? And in what way/from where do you envision
doing these 'remote' connnections?


so i can access work files from home and save them back to the one
location. And my work email will follow me.


Let's try and ensure you are not diving into the deep end of the
pool here when you didn't even have to get your feet wet. ;-)

--
Shenan Stanley

i really appreciate your help. I never knew this forum was here til
i looked for upgrades yesterday. But i think it's too late. I've
already bought the bloody server and the tech guy spent all day
yesterday setting it up so i've had to pay for that. But if it is
possible to make it work on XP Home that will save me a fortune on
all new software. But apparently the company that sold me the
computers initially should never have installed the Home edition
anyway (according to the tech guy yesterday). ???????
Michelle.


Truthfully - in the beginning, you might have been better off (since these
are business computers) getting Windows XP Professional - but working with
what you've got, this is likely what I would have done...

A networked attached hard disk drive (Network Attached Storage or NAS) would
have done your 'centralized storage' just fine. Windows XP Home - unless
the software you utilize requires more - would likely work fine all around.
The machines in question would access the central file repository (NAS)
either using software installed upon each of them OR (in the better NAS
devices) just as a shared disk drive (for example, S:\.) As for your
software - depending on how it functions - it may/may not have trouble using
such an area. I do not know from the information given. If it 'saves each
quote' as a seperate file - it would be no problem. I don't know how much
space you need (or how much space you have on that server you purchased and
had installed) but something like one of these BuffaloTech products would
have been ideal:

http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/

.... with the most expensive being right at $2000 US dollars for 4TB (4000GB
or 4,000,000MB) of space - which I cannot see a business that runs off three
Windows XP Home computers using very quickly (unless you record a lot of
music and deal in huge graphic images or movie files.) More reasonable
would likely be the 1TB TeraStation version for about $700 US dollars. You
could even go with a different product from them (LinkStation Live) which
has a built in Web Server so you can access your files from
anywhere/anytime. It's between $600 to $700 US dollars.

That handles the centralized storage nicely - likely a bit overkill - but
unused space is not wasted space - it is room for growth. ;-) As for the
other thing - your remote access. I don't know much about how your office
connects to the Internet, but I bet there is some sort of Cable/DSL Router
(or just a router) involved that takes the one Internet line you have and
allows all of the computers behind it to share that connection. Your
computers communicate internally on what is called a private network and
through the same box - they share the one larger line you have coming from
the Internet itself. In that case - you don't *really* need a 'static IP
address' - you just needed someone to set you up with a Dynamic DNS service
and configure the router and computers in such a way to allow you to connect
to them remotely.

This is how that works... You have the router that allows the computers to
all share the Internet through it. It likely gives the computers connected
to it IP Addresses like 192.168.x.x (private addresses) and it keeps the
public (Internet) address all to itself. It probably has a way of
configuring a Dynamic DNS service on it so that no matter what happens to
its actual Internet address (IP) - you could always communicate with it from
anywhere as long as you could remember the fully qualified domain name you
would assign it using the service. An example of one of these services
(FREE!) is:

http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/

So your router - the box allowing you to share the Internet amongst all the
computers on the other side of it - might be configured with a name like
michellejr.thruhere.net <-- which means whenever you want to connect to the
router, you would connect to michellejr.thruhere.net and not some IP address
that looks like 208.234.234.35 and is hard to remember and might change at
random. That's the first part.

The second part would be installing something like UltraVNC (free :
http://www.ultravnc.com/) on the three machines in the office and
configuring each of them to utilize a different port for connecting and
configuring the router to know which machine answers to which port and
pass-thru the traffic accordingly... Then you - with a small 'viewer'
program you could carry around on a floppy diskette, thumb drive, or have
saved on a computer always - could type in the Dynamic DNS name
(michellejr.thruhere.net) followed by the port the system you wish to
connect to is assigned (michellejr.thruhere.net::5900) to connect to that
machine from anyplace with an Internet connection. You then have full
remote control of the machine 'at the office' and you see what is actually
on the screen there and can use it just like if you were sitting in front of
the machine. If you check your email on the machine at the office
exclusively right now - since you are remotely using the same machine in
this case - that does not change.

Now - I have had to assume a bit there. I assumed that you have some router
that you control and can configure (or have configured) in the ways I
mentioned. I assumed that you would not need many terabytes of space and
that the application you are using to generate these quotes would be able to
save to a centralized location. I assumed that the machines in your office
are already on the same network with one another and could - theoretically -
communicate and share files with one another if configured to do so (if they
are on the same network - they can.) I assumed you have some high-speed
Internet at your home (or the location you will be wanting to remote into
the office from) so that the remote connection would be more than tolerable.
I assumed that all of your current systems (including the one at home) are
likely some version of Windows.


Now - can you do all of that with a Small Business Server and three Windows
XP Professional machines? Sure. You'll likely end up paying your internet
Service Provider a monthly fee to get a 'static IP' address for the server
and then the server (with however much hard disk drive space) will either
have that IP to itself and share out your internet connection with the other
machines or the router that connects it and the other machines to the
internal (private) network and the Internet will be configured to pass
certain types of traffic through to the server before going to the other
machines, etc. The Windows XP Home machines could map drive shares (as that
seems to be your main use for it - file storage) on the Small Business
Server with no problem - but with Windows XP Professional on all the
machines and a Small Business Server - you could also centralize your logon
names and such using a domain setup instead of three stand-alone computers.

It does give it more of an actual 'growing business' feel to it, and if your
business is at that point where it is growing into something like that and
more and more computers may be added with more and more people over time
(and everyone wants that) - then yeah - I can see jumping into Windows XP
Professional on all the workstations, a SBServer and a domain setup to
centralize control.

However - I think you should have been informed that there *were* options
that probably would not have cost as much. I am sure you are paying a
decent amount for the server, the software, the installation and then the
installation/configurtation and troubleshooting that would be involved in
the upgrading of the three Windows XP Home systems. And there will be
issues that will arise in such a migration. ;-)

You'd have to pay for the NAS device, its 'installation' and configuration
ton the current machines, someone to configure the router and machines for
the remote control capability like I said as well... I cannot see that
being as much money as the other alternative (unless that SBServer was
fairly inexpensive and there is little or no trouble in the migration during
any upgrades to Windows XP and the connectivity to a new domain...) Some of
the configurations *will* overlap - like the router config for remote
capabilities... Although, you may end up with a monthly bill for a static IP
where the dynamic dns option was free.

Now you may ask why I am telling you all this in such detail... Well, I
think if you read it and try to understand it - and then MENTION it to those
doing the work - you might give them a shock. I'm not saying with 100%
certainty that they are taking advantage of your lack of knowledge - maybe
they explained some of these options to you, maybe many of my assumptions
are incorrect - but it does pay to know a little about something before
dropping a lot of money. ;-)

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


.

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