How do I setup a small windows network?

I am going to school for computers and would like to practice at home, I have 4 computers that I would like to run like a work place. So I would like to set up my computer as the admin, and the others to be controlled by the admin pc, like say to set settings, view the desktops, remote control them, send network messages, ect..

Does anyone have or know of a good tutorial for this? I am not sure what to google for the answer. Plus I figured that some of you may have allready have done this and could offer good suggestions and such. Thanks!

 

what is it you want to do? to setup a home network is fairly simple. in XP you put them all in the same workgroup. that will allow to see them, after that you can remote into them share printers and files as long as you have a user with the same password on all of them

 

sounds like you want to have the other pc's connect to a domain..not too sure you can do that without windows server running...

 

I know how to set up a file / printing share network on windows XP.

Could any1 explain / link a tutorial or something to help manage a small windows network? I would like to remote to the other local PC's and send /net msg's. Manage everything that goes on within my win XP network.

Do I have to have server installed on one, or is xp pro good?


This is what i am going to school for so it intrest me, thanks

 

do to what you want it sounds like you a server setup

 

you could probably accomplish this using linux as well, and tinkering with linux could prove helpful to what you want to learn as well. Do some research on which distro (version) of linux is best suited for what you are looking for. Most/all distros of linux are free, and they can be run from a cd/dvd without installing, so you could try out many different ones.