difference between server and desktop OS

Is there a difference between say XPpro and Server 2003 as far as file
server performance?

My question relates to a typical small office scenerio. Say there are 5~10
XPpro or W2kpro client machines on 100 Mb Ethernet that use a database (not
client/server) and various office files located on a file server. If I took
the same server hardware and setup an NTFS partiton and various shares and
used XPpro on one and Server 2003 on the other would there be any difference
in performance/stability etc between the two?

One difference is that win2k/XP Pro allow only for 10 concurrent connections
to its shared resources (and one computer may have more than one connection
open at a time, note). Not sure what your goal is...?

Dave wrote:
> Is there a difference between say XPpro and Server 2003 as far as file
> server performance?
>
> My question relates to a typical small office scenerio. Say there are
> 5~10 XPpro or W2kpro client machines on 100 Mb Ethernet that use a
> database (not client/server) and various office files located on a
> file server. If I took the same server hardware and setup an NTFS
> partiton and various shares and used XPpro on one and Server 2003 on
> the other would there be any difference in performance/stability etc
> between the two?

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"
<(E-Mail Removed) ahoo.com> wrote in message
news:uJDsLkJ#(E-Mail Removed)...
> One difference is that win2k/XP Pro allow only for 10 concurrent
connections
> to its shared resources (and one computer may have more than one
connection
> open at a time, note). Not sure what your goal is...?
>
Thanks, I understand the connection limitation. The goal is to formulate a
response if someone has the size network I described and doesn't want to buy
a server OS. If the desktop OS is used instead of a server OS will there be
a performance loss or other issues?

There shouldn't be any perfomance loss.
Aside from the 10 connection limit, the only other issue is managability.

"Dave" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:u2OKJ0M#(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"
> <(E-Mail Removed) ahoo.com> wrote in
message
> news:uJDsLkJ#(E-Mail Removed)...
> > One difference is that win2k/XP Pro allow only for 10 concurrent
> connections
> > to its shared resources (and one computer may have more than one
> connection
> > open at a time, note). Not sure what your goal is...?
> >
> Thanks, I understand the connection limitation. The goal is to formulate a
> response if someone has the size network I described and doesn't want to
buy
> a server OS. If the desktop OS is used instead of a server OS will there
be
> a performance loss or other issues?
>
>