? for home networking gurus
 

I believe it is possible but I want to hear from somebody who knows a little more about networking than me (I have a hard enough time keeping up with my programming knowledge to learn much about networking). Say you have two comps sharing a broadband connection through a wireless router, one is running XP the other is running Win98. Is it possible to also have these computers share files with the same setup? If yes, is it also possible to set it up so that the XP box can start applications running on the 98 box?

I'm about to replace this one I have, and would like to keep the old one and use it for 3D rendering etc... I would like to be able to network them so I can set the old one up in a remote corner and forget about it. Just use it as remote storage/workhorse when I need to do a process that will tie up my processor for a long time such as a 3D animation or high res rendering. It would also be handy to be able to launch a program (installed on the 98 machine) from my XP machine, but have it run on the 98 machine. Some of my processes may require access to the internet so they will have to share the internet connection.

If either of those answers is no, what about if they both ran XP?

network rendering is usually application dependent.

If you want to do it straight ghetto, you can easily do a file share and open the file in the 98 machine off the xp machine. Then render it.

Render slaves are fun...I remember when we networked the whole school system's p2 450's back in 1999 to be a render farm. 250 machines still took 1 hour to render the footage

Network rendering isn't really what I'm going for (although a render farm is pretty damn cool and not out of the question). I want to sit in front of the the XP machine and tell the 98 machine to render a file that is saved on the 98's HDD using software installed on the 98 machine. The XP machine should have nothing to do with the rendering after that.

Here is an example.
1) I create a data file on the XP machine.
2) I save the data file on a HDD in the 98 machine.
3) I start software installed on 98 from the XP machine.
4) 98 machine renders away happily oblivious to the fact that it is now my bitch and I am free to do other activities on the XP machine since it is not doing work on the rendering at all.

Here is another example of a something I'd like to do. Install Norton's AV on the 98 machine and use it to scan the XP machines drives without being in front of the 98 machine.

just use VNC, tightvnc, or realvnc for the first part for the AV scan, just export the XP's drives as network shares, mount them on the 98 machine and have the AV scanner include them in its scheduled scan, my server does this, except it finds the shares automatically.

Okay....

This is possible using XP Pro. It's called Remote Desktop and it's really cool :)

It allows for one computer to completely control another computer from a remote location. Basically, you have two computers; the one controlled (called a client) and the one controlling (called a host.) It allows the host to have complete access to the client and it's resources. You can create/delete files, start programs on the client using the client resources and lots more.

The problem is your client is running 98. In order for this to work the client must run XP Pro. The host can run whatever it likes, as long as the remote desktop package is installed. (This can be downloaded from Windows Update.

I don't know if this helps or not, but it seems to fit all the criteria you mentioned. It will allow you to create a file on the host; save it to the client; start software using the client from the host; render the file using the clients resources making it your bitch ;)

Here's a link http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprmdtp.htm

You could run VNC, tightVNC or realVNC and it would probably work well. I just figured since you're about to buy a whole new system and install XP it would be easier to upgrade to XP Pro and get all the software built in as opposed to third party.

Hope it works out for you.

You can also use VNC from within a web browser, which means you can access files from remotely if you know your IP

The remote desktop idea doesn't let you control a Win98 machine from a winxp. It allows you to control a winxp pro machine from a 2000/mac/...

do what irieemon suggested.

Thanks guys. It doesn't look like I'm going to be getting the new system after all, but I will in the future and I'll keep all this in mind.

That's why I mentioned the problem and subsequent upgrade.....:hmm: