Basic Question: Advantage of Lantastic 8.0 over Windows Networking

[Derek Walker]

I am upgrading a network for a client who has been using Lantastic v5.01
with Windows 3.1 and DOS. I am upgrading his machines to Windows 98 and
Windows NT v4.0 for the server. Right now, the functions that he uses for
networking is sharing drives and printers.

I typically use Windows networking, with Windows NT administration, and I am
not familiar with Lantastic. I am trying to determine whether or not to
recommend that the client upgrade to Lantastic v8.0 or just do file and
print sharing under Windows networking.

My question is, what advantages will Lantastic give?

Any advice would be helpful. I do not read this newsgroup often, so please
cc my e-mail address (dxwa...@mindspring.com) when replying to this post.

Thanks,
Derek Walker

[Steve Yates]

"Derek Walker" <dwal...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:8FF34.5588$ps.2...@news4.atl...

> My question is, what advantages will Lantastic give?

Over the Microsoft networking found in Windows 95/98, file-level
security and a user-friendly interface for making connections are the
two biggest differences. Artisoft claims a significant speed increase,
too....but I forget the percentage right now (I want to say 30%). You
can also do some other neat stuff like route traffic between network
cards, but that's not applicable for most small LANs.

Windows NT will of course get you the security on the server, but
you also have to purchase CALs for each workstation. If you already
have NT this is all paid for, so I'm not sure there's much advantage to
using LANtastic on top of it.

You don't say how many PCs are in use at this client...if you use
LANtastic that will let everyone work while you work. If you switch,
there is a point where a minimum of 50% of the PCs can't see the "live"
server.

--

Steve Yates
Integrated Technical Solutions, Inc.

E-Mail - st...@teamITS.com
Web - www.teamITS.com

[Ola Pedersen]

Derek,

I dont know if you can do this also with win network, but with Lantastic
you can use old DOS-machines, without windows, as file and printer servers.

A DOS-server is very convenient, for instance with power failures
(if you don't have UPS) -- it restarts automatically!

Also, when date with Lantastic, you don't have to get married with your
network
operating system. You just install it and forget it.

Ola Pedersen

>My question is, what advantages will Lantastic give?
>

>Thanks,
>Derek Walker

[Douglas Bolt]

I agree. I support a 250 node Lantastic network with a mixture of DOS, 3.x,
95, 98 and NT machines running Lantastic v6 - v8 plus some running MS
without Lantastic NOS. Lantastic requires much less support. Printers
never "go away" with Lantastic. Security is easier to implement. And,
users seem to like it better than MS. However, one has to consider that
folks have had more experience with Lantastic than MS.

"Lee Shornick" <leeshornospam@***@pcmax.com> wrote in message
news:xVmIOAAKMJu95Z...@4ax.com...
>
> We have fonud time and again that a customer's complaints regarding
> network performance under Windows networking go away when LANtastic
> gets installed.
>
> Under Windows, your only real option for adjusting the performance of
> the system is to tell it it is a server. All that does is provide more
> agressive caching. With LANtastic you can make all sorts of
> adjustments which seem to effect the network performance far more.
>
> We have eliminated performance bottlenecks many times by installing
> LANtastic and adjusting the performance of LANtastic based on the use
> of the particular machine it's installed on.
>
> '