network 2 pcs

[sonofseattle]

Hiya well I am triing to decide what is cheaper, to go out and buy 4 copies of office XP or to buy 1 and buy 3 licences for the other 3 computer on the network. Now I am no network pro. but I might end up just doing what I typed in on at the beginnig of this post. How would I go about having my pcs share office from the server computer without having to install it on all 3 of my other pcs. I am going to be using win2k pro. Any URL or a step by step would be grrrreat. Thanks in advance.



Sonofseattle

 

[igiveup]

MicroShafts licensing scheme won't allow you to buy less than 5 licenses, and anything less is "boxed copy retail" only. Plus you won't be able to roll out a regular (boxed copy) office XP product with an admin kit like you could before. If you want to save money on your installs consider going to one of these events. You have to have a free schedule this weekend, but you get $100 off a special edition XP product. If you have some family sign up and go then you will be able to have them buy the product and save a ton more.

As far as your product goes, you aren't buying a network use version of XP even if you stuck with corporate liscensing. Each install is completely separate, even in the corporate environment. With XP corporate a server is in charge of managing the licensing and you would just enter in all of your license codes there. From there you just register your current setup with MS once, and refresh it as needed. You wouldn't have to do it separately like with the consumer version of XP. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU NEED WINDOWS 2000 SERVER OR NOT, but that is something a corporate reseller would be able to tell you if you went that direction.

 

[igiveup]

Ok, here's an even better idea.

Buy Windows 2000 Server for about $650 (check Pricewatch, bottom right, under Software)
Buy 1 copy of Office XP
Install Terminal Server (comes with Windows 2000, with 5 licenses) and then install office XP.

If you go to that Extreme event then you get Office XP at a reduced price. I don't know whats in the Special Edition, but it can't be that bad. If you do it this way all your users could access XP at the same time, you would save yourself some money, and you would get Server 2000 out of the deal. Pretty sweet huh? Check all this out though. MS may have blocked off Terminal Server/Office XP use somehow, but I have no idea why they would.