Can I use Windows 2000 Professional as a file server?

I have two questions and I would appreciate it if you could help me. We are planning to upgrade our servers from Windows NT to Windows 2000:

  1. In some sections of our company (which has less than 10 users,) we have Windows NT Workstation running as a file server. My first question is, can I do the same with Windows 2000 Professional?

  2. If our office in San Diego exchanges information with our company in New Jersey, there are completely different segments in the IP addresses. They also don't have a DNS if we install a domain controller and control the users with Active Directory. Will we have problems with exchanging data or applications between these two locations?

Yes, you can use Windows 2000 Professional as a file server. Note that Win2KPro (as opposed to Server) cannot allow more than 10 simultaneous NetBIOS connections at any given time. With the small size of your company, that shouldn't be a problem.

In regards to your second question, this will depend on what kind of "data" or "apps" you're talking about. Unless you're trying to get both divisions to use the same DC -- something that might be difficult over a wide network without tunnelling or something similar -- I'm a little hard-pressed to see what problems may arise.

This was first published in June 2002

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