Suggestions on home networking and VPN

[Superlac]

Hello ...I am new at this and I need your help in this issues. Ok my office has 7 comptuers...some are Win2k and some are XP. All are connect to a router and all have internet access. I have a static IP address and want to set up a network for all of my comptuers together soo that I can share files between them.

So let me get this right...All I have to do is just right click on any folders in any computers and "share" them right ?? Thats the way I've been doing it. Is that correct ?? is that a "true" network for my 7 comptuers ?? If so....

Then how can setup all of those computers at work so that when I am at home I can work on them.. Is that the VPN thing that's been going around this forum?? If so..how can I setup VPN so that when I am at home and I am able to work from any of those 7 computers???

Is the above idea good for my office ?? Or should I just build a really good computer and run it as a FTP server. I can save all the work from the other 7 computers in that 1 good computer that's running as a FTP server. And when I am at home I can FTP into that comptuer and just download what I need and work on it...and then upload it back into that FTP comptuer ?? Is this better than VPN ???

Please help....
Thank you !!!!

P.S. Is it true that with VPN only one person can access the network at a time ?? That means if I log in from home to my office...my wife CAN NOT log in at the same time right ???

[John Prophet]

yeah, thats a "real" .."peer to peer" network. You are sharing files in whats known as a "workgroup"..so you only have to make sure the workgroup names are the same....on XP the workgroup is named "mshome" by default....Im not sure what it is on W2000...but they do need to match.

I dont know 3 cents about vpn specifics so I will watch the thread to see what I can learn

JP

[Superlac]

Thank you for the reply....

So I guess my "peer to peer" network works for my office...but then how can I setup my office computers' so that when I am home I can log on to any of those computers and work or download files from them ??

thanks..

[sfw1960]

RAS
Remote Administration Services...
Something I know of , but don't know SQUAT about -- that's what you need to learn about , then I bet you can do anything you need -- Our IS dude @ work uses RAS to do EVERYTHING from his desktop , on about 75-100 PCs & servers.
You'll haveta but a book , I'm sure....