Home Networking with Windows 2000 Professional

[Big Booger]

Get new Win2K capabilities and the best features of NT and Win98 in a peer-to-peer home network

With Windows 2000 Professional (Win2K Pro), you can easily set up a home network between desktops without using a server. In addition to combining some of the best features of Windows NT Workstation and Windows 98, Win2K Pro offers many new capabilities for home networking. Among the features you can enable are file and print sharing and Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), a nifty feature that lets several computers share one Internet connection. Add to this Win2K Pro's NT-style user account management and permissions, and you have a reasonably powerful engine for home networking. Win2K Pro is also strongly backward compatible. You can introduce Win2K Pro into a peer-to-peer networking setup between Win9x clients, or introduce Win9x clients into a Win2K Pro setup.

Because Win2K Pro comes with NetBEUI and other legacy protocols, networking different generations of Windows clients isn't a problem. Most people will use TCP/IP as their primary transport protocol in a peer-to-peer Windows network. However, to resolve Windows computer names, you need to have NetBEUI installed.

Full Article (free registration required)

[Dehcbad25]

NetBEUI is actually a security hole Even said by MS themselves. And my security scanner keeps screaming about that too.
For home networking thought it is better to use XP pro if you have to buy the OS. However the article is good for those who already have 2K and 98