Can you still buy Windows XP?

[Cvengr]

If we have 5 PCs, different locations, on the road all the time, different OS, variations of Windows XP Home, Pro, 2000SE, and want to turn one into a music server, always playing Internet music, others all Internet connected and always using Firefox, with a handful of firewalls, such as AVG, MS, what licensing scheme are best to adapt for next 5 yrs? ISP via DSL

(No gaming involved, but some professional graphics level SW)

Any recommendations?

I’d go XP Pro, but at $200/PC its an expensive option. PCs are now so inexpensive and used commodoties even less expensive, it seems smarter just to slap one in as a particular function server here and there whenever needed.

One a printer server, one a music server, etc

[discostu]

The problem with not going Pro is Home edition isn’t supposed to network, so then your machines wouldn’t be able to talk to each other, there are some hacks out there but I recommend avoiding them. For your music server, if that’s really just going to be sharing files and such, I’d probably go with 2K, yeah it doesn’t get sold new anymore but it can be found on E-Bay or other places for used software, it’s secure, stable, doesn’t suck processor, and is built to be a server. Can hook the printers up to it also. Of course I came up in the old Novell days so I kind of lean towards “blind” servers (they do nothing but serve, the old days of Novell you couldn’t even administer the boxes locally, you had to connect in from the world).

Licensing will all depend on the software you need. Cable vs DSL depends on who you have, I’ve gone cable because Cox has OK customer support and QWest is run by idiots.