Setting Up an Office Network with SC1420 Server.

this is a very open ended question so it would be difficult to answer without more information.  but if your intention of a server is simply to use it to store files, then forget about it and simply put a common folder on one of the three pc/workstations and make that your puesdo server.  the performance hit on that workstation will be minimal and you will save tons on the server hardware, server operating system software, and the ongoing support of the server.  focus on consolidating and organizaing your company data and backing it up regualarly.

I agree with you on the open endedness of the question and I do like to apologize. To clarify, we do like to set up a server based network. We do have a collection software installed in the server (file share enabled) and wanted to create workstations with a snapshort of the collection software using ODBC Administrator to access the database in the server. Collectors will be able to access the collection software in the server from their workstation via the server database. If they log on directly to the server then we do need to get additional user license for the server, which is not cost effective. Thus, what we are looking to do is allow the collectors to access the collection software in the server throught the database using ODBC Administrator.

We created a server domain as well as user names and passwords which our collectors will use to log on to the domain via remote desktop connections from their workstation desktops. Howver, without properly setting up the network, we are unable to establish file sharing and data communications between the server and the workstations.

I hope this gives some added clarity. Again, thanks all for any helpful directive.

Onyeka :-)

i htink you owe it to yourself to interview local computer consultants to get this sorted out.  there are so many ways to do what you are looking for that i can't imagin that you will get meaningful or worthwhile information in the form of a reply here.  if your goal is to have remote workers, then it seem to me that you will probably want to get 'windows small business server' (sbs) software which has someting called 'remote web workplace' integrated in it that allows easy remote (internet) access to the server and all workstations connected to ther server witout the need for special vpn or other costly and more complicated aproaches to deal with security issues that soround remote access.  in fact, with sbs you may not need the workstations at all if your only reason for having them was to provide remote access.  on the other hand, if your data sources are external (not a database stored on your own network/server) then you may be better off just having workstation that have odbc configured to fetch data diretly from the interenet, and not have a server at all.  again, not enough information to make good recomendataions, but not that i am asking for more as this is something that in my opinion is better left to having a verbal converstion rather than a writen one.  perhaps someone else can help.  best of luck.