I thought Notetab was some sort of a freeware version of some text editor? If it has some scripting capabilities, it sounds like some sort of round about way of doing things, probably, it was a 'temporary' solution of some sort.
If I understand correctly, you just want for the users to be able to view image files stored on the server in folders and open them on the client end with some sort of an app. The files are stored somewhere in the filesystem on the server. You are running XP. If all you need to do is to securely store the files, retrieve them (using a web server) on the server side, and view them using whatever viewer on the client side, I don't see the need for mysql. The filesystem security will take care of access to the files, i.e. a doctor will only be able to view his own stuff; if you are going to use Apache, there are quite a fiew security features provided with it. All you'd need would be a PHP, Perl or whatever based small app to provide some sort of web interface.
"If all you need to do is to securely store the files, retrieve them (using a web server) on the server side, and view them using whatever viewer on the client side, I don't see the need for mysql."
I was planning on the website being the viewer. Is this not possible? What other way should I view and what at that point would be the use of PHP/PERL or I am reading you wrong?
I wanted to make the app web based so that no software would be necessary to be installed on the client side. Am I going about this wrong? I know there will need to be a workstation with a scanner attached (Scanstation). The other issue is that the patient information would need to be added in plus a patient record assigned to the patient. Currently the user searches on the patient's name. Which is OK up to the point that you get two or more Rob A. Johnsons.
I guess what I envision the user logs into the website and types in the keyword to search for the patient and the another field underneath will show the search results. The user than clicks on the right patient which will bring up a list of images/documents in a form of a link. The user then clicks on the link and the image/document is brought up with in the web app to view.