Vista Tutorial - Sharing problems with Vista Business

Hello,

I'm having a problem with Vista business that's driving me crazy. At work I have Vista business on a main machine (called MAIN). It's a Dell Vostro and it came pre-installed with Vista Business, 4 GB RAM, 200 GB hard drive. I have patient management and imaging software on it and I have up to 7 computers that connect to MAIN to access this software. I have all the sharing and security settings for "Everyone" and I can connect with all seven computers most of the time. But everyday, one or two of the workstation computers (running Vista basic), will be kicked off and I get an error message when I try to reconnect to MAIN "No more connections can be made at this remote computer at this time because there are already as many connections as this computer can accept."

So I can't access the software on MAIN, I can't print to the printer on MAIN, I can't do anything until I reboot MAIN. Then everything can connect again. This happens randomly and I know the maximum connections is 10 computers, so why am I having this problem with 7? Connection to the router is fine and I have internet connections on all seven. 2 of the seven are wired to the router and the other 5 are wireless connections.

Please help.

Hi nimans and welcome to the forums

Does this problem happen with all 7 PCs or is it just those that are linked wirelessly? When a workstation is "kicked off", can the others still access MAIN as normal?

No, it can happen with the wired connections sometimes. I did notice that one of the computers was sharing it's media folder. When I opened "my network", i saw 10 icons, one for the media folder of one of the workstations, which I turned off, one for the router, which is a D-link, and one for MAIN, which is the computer itself, and the other 7 computers.

I also have one printer that is shared from another workstation, I don't know if that's connecting and MAIN thinks it's another connection. I took it off just to be sure.

I will check to see it the printer and the media shared folder are counted as connections, but still, it's 7 computers.

A friend recommended I dump vista and get Microsoft Server 2003 for my main computer. I want to exhaust all options first.

Oh and yes, the others can still access MAIN.

Hi nimans,

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately, I haven't any experience in setting up a network. However, here is some basic advice. If at all possible, always used a wired connection. If that is not possible, make sure that your wireless connections are set up securely (use WPA-2 if possible, but if not WPA or even WEP is better than nothing). Make sure that ONLY authorised PCs are able to connect - check this by trying to connect an unauthorised PC. Don't forget that wireless signals can extend beyond the building and that if they are not secure unauthorised people can gain access. Another thing to check is the positioning of the wireless aerials - poor positioning means that they can sometimes pickup the electrical signals that are generated when, for example lights (particularly flourescent) are turned on or when other equipment such as fridges and kettles are turned on or off. Make sure that all equipment is plugged in via surge protectors - these often include filters to prevent problems caused by spikes in the power supply (each time something is turned on or off on a particular circuit it results in a brief power spike on it).

(John/Shawn: I think that this thread would be better off in the 'Network & Internet' section of the forums).

Hi nimans,

It looks like you are hitting the 10 connections limit which applies to NT based desktop operating systems, all I can suggest is to ensure that Media sharing is switched off on all machine as I think These would be included in the limit.