Originally Posted by Seb

Fred,

I'm an I.T. Administrator by trade.

You can accomplish what you want (file and printer sharing) with most versions of Windows from 98se on up (depending on how many users). You are technically looking for a "peer to peer" type network. Looking at the needs you've expressed here, you don't need a "client / server" (or Linux) type network.

If you want to drop me a p.m. we can talk through your specifics.