mac osx and windows 2000 vs. windows xp

i have an old nt 4.0 server whcih i use for centralized file storage
for my two mac osx computers. the server hardware is dying and i need
to replace it. i've been exploring windows 2003, windows xp and
possibly just adding an external disk to one of my macs and forgetting
about windows completely. only problem is i need a windows based
machine for a specialzed web based application and a card reader with
no mac os suport.

the two scenarios i've come up with are
1. windows 2000 or windows xp on a pc i will purchase (i'm looking for
suggestions on which os to use since i only need basic file sharing and
data is not real critical as long as it's backed up and can be
restored) i don't need exchange or sql.

2. an external hard drive hooked up to one mac via usb which would be
shareed by both macs. and configuring one mac with boot camp so i can
use the web app and card reader when needed. do i have to buy a copy of
windows xp to put on the windows partition? does boot camp really work?

garonson wrote:
> i have an old nt 4.0 server whcih i use for centralized file storage
> for my two mac osx computers. the server hardware is dying and i need
> to replace it. i've been exploring windows 2003, windows xp and
> possibly just adding an external disk to one of my macs and forgetting
> about windows completely. only problem is i need a windows based
> machine for a specialzed web based application and a card reader with
> no mac os suport.
>
> the two scenarios i've come up with are
> 1. windows 2000 or windows xp on a pc i will purchase (i'm looking for
> suggestions on which os to use since i only need basic file sharing and
> data is not real critical as long as it's backed up and can be
> restored) i don't need exchange or sql.
>
> 2. an external hard drive hooked up to one mac via usb which would be
> shareed by both macs. and configuring one mac with boot camp so i can
> use the web app and card reader when needed. do i have to buy a copy of
> windows xp to put on the windows partition? does boot camp really work?


You could easily purchase a PC desktop with XP for $500-700 that you
could network with the macs. Bootcamp can also work on one mac, but it
depends on how much windows support you really need. Bootcamp forces
you to restart your mac to run windows, so there is no mac interface
while you are running windows on it. Parallels can be run
simultaneously while the Mac OS is running, so a simpler answerf, if
you can stand using both OSes at the same time, have enough RAM and
hard drive space.