Max connections allowed to an XP Pro workstation

Is there any way around the 10 connection ceiling for the amount of workstations connecting to a single XP Pro machine.

Thanks.

 

Interesting question on many levels.

License agreement
In many ways the limit is artificial. However, that limit is part of your OS license agreement. Have a look at Microsoft's support article ID 328459 for information on a cause of the limit being hit too early and the limitations of the license. I wouldn't advise you breaking your license.

How many clients can you support with 10 concurrent connections
If you only connect to the PC when you need a service it is supporting, then 10 concurrent connections can support a lot of clients. I wouldn't be suprised if you could support a 100 clients. To achieve this you need to make sure users don't hog a connection.

So mapping drives on the XP pc will cause problems as the OS will effectively hold a permenent connection to support that mapping. So browse to the PC and grab occasional files = support lots of clients. Set up mappings to the PC, 10 clients only. Sharing on a printer on the XP pc could cause similar issues.

If you have a network application running on the PC such as a web or FTP server, then 10 concurrent connections will support a lot of clients.

So how much the 10 concurrent connections actually limits your use of an XP Pro PC as a small server, really depends which services are being offered by the PC.

Is it a good idea to use XP Pro to act as a main server for more than 10 client PCs?
If you are looking to use XP Pro as a cheap alternative to a server OS to support ten or more Client PC, then I would argue that you are making a false ecconomy. Once you go beyond five users on a peer to peer network, managing users and the network becomes hard work. You have to maintain multiple user accounts on various PC. You don't have the extra tools that a proper server system provides.

If you are looking for a cheap file server for a 10 seat plus network, don't skimp on the server. Get a proper server OS like Windows 2003. The extra money spent on the server OS will be repaid in time saved managing the network.

However, if you already have a server managing your network and you just want to add another service such as a small intranet web application on another PC, then using an XP Pro pc is a viable alternative.

 

Thanks. I will have to omve the printer sharing off the server in order to free up some space. The printer has a built in NIC so this will not be a problem. The problem is that their application requires a connection to a data file at all times, and all users have their folder setup on the server. Hopefully this will not become an issue. It will become an issue if they decide to add more users. Then we will have to add a server OS.

 

You can also look at Linux + Samba for server. Rock steady & very good performance + the price is hard to beat.

 

check out this info I found.....
http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1497

 

The point is the limit is a license requirement. It is possible to increase the number of connections by hacking your system. However, by doing so you will be violating your license agreement with Microsoft.