Going to setup a home network, want to get some stuff figured out first

Pretty common request, please read notes at bottom.

Every computer needs protection. Being behind a hardware router makes excellent protection, so at least runs Windows Firewall as extra protection. Dont forget spyware. If you connect it to the net, it does not matter how, they are vulnerable.

This one is easy, usually. You just play internet games and skip the networked version of it. In other words, play as if your connectiong to a friend in another state, for example. Back in the day, we used to play networked games, but the security risk of using networking is not worth it.

You could do this, but I dont think it would be free or cheap. This is typically done in larger networked environments. Maybe someone could help out here, but I would manage computers individually, there are only 3 of them. Unless I misunderstood, each computer is independant, and if you leave file and print sharing off, no one computer can screw up the other, another reason to play games via internet (tcp\ip)

Again, this is for the bottom, like first question.

Not easily. Not a good idea, if it was. Since AIM can only login once, the problem would be having everyone see the programa and use it, again, I think your imagining that your all going to be looking at similar screens and sharing things and thats not how it works.


Ok, to repeat, you want to do things I dont suggest. To edit manage other computers files, etc., requires you setup file and print sharing. 3 computers connected to the net with file and print sharing is a bad idea. I think you are picturing your computer managing everything the others do, when in reality, those computers are mainly sharing bandwidth and are independant. Let, for now, come to grips that you can only safely and easily do a few things:

1: All 3 computers are connected to the internet, are independant.
2: Main computer can manage bandwith and internet access.

Cover that and read up on doing more later.

Monitoring tools can monitor who does what:
http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?id=11&sort=25

Internet tools have some things as well, for example:
http://majorgeeks.com/Netlimiter_d4185.html

Covert Ops has some stuff that will let you "spy"