Hello! I have this old Athlon 1000Mhz/133MB/40GB which I would like to set for file/printer sharing and maybee for FTP sharing. The demands are: 1. It should be foolproof and as simple and stable as it gets. 2. It should be able to share files to PC's with XP and Vista installed. 3. It should support newest printers 4. It should optionally work as FTP server Please point me in right direction! Thank you for your time!! ;D

"1. It should be foolproof and as simple and stable as it gets." Well.... You should see all the complaints about vista/xp in the vista forum. Not sure any OS or config would be what I'd call simple. You are really kind of stuck with XP or Vista for printing. FTP would be easy. Filezilla server. MS ftp has always stunk. I read it wrong and answer it wrong too. So get off my case you peanut.

If you had alittle more power in that PC (1.5Mhz) I would recommend getting the OEM Version of MS Home Server. It is basically Windows 2003 with some added functionality with all the really techie stuff stripped out (e.g. domains). I do not run Vista at home, so I can't comment on that. I ran a File Server for a couple of years using XP on an old 550Mhz system and had no problems. I later upgraded it to Win2003 and have been running it fine ever since (Well, except for the motherboard dying a few weeks back, but a $20 replacement was had on Ebay). However, Win2003 is not cheap, so I would suggest using XP - but apparently there are some problems with XP playing nice with Vista according to jefro's response. But, that would probably still be my choice. There's always Linux, but there goes the "easy" part of the equation. Michael J

Like Michael said, I am also using an Windows Server 2003 for a file server. It works great and was really simple to setup. For FTP I would go with Filezilla like Jefro already said. I have used it before, and getting it setup is a no-brainer. If you don't want to invest in Server 2k3, XP will work just fine. My file server actually started with XP as the OS, and it worked great.

Thank you for all replys guys! I found one linux distribution called clarkconnect. http://www.clarkconnect.com/info/co... I am testing it now, it looks that it can deliver what I need. So far no problems... If that wont work i'll try with Win server! With Kind regards from Slovenia!

Wow, I've never heard of that distro before. Looks like the Community version has tons of features. I might have to download it and try it out. If your looking for a good Linux solution, take a look at OpenFiler, FreeNAS, and NASLite+. I've used FreeNAS, and OpenFiler before at home. Both were easy to setup.

Thank You Tonysathre! I might check your solution also! Kind regards! Dejan, Slovenia