how many computers can use set up on a peer to peer network with windows xp
home.

A given XP Home computer can service simultaneous requests from five peers.

Each peer can use more than one resource, for example a file share and a
printer.

This low limit makes it rather unsuitable for use as a peer-server, for
which Pro or Win2000 would be better, with ten connections available.

Ian wrote:
Not quite right.

XP Home has a limit of 5 "simultaneous connections"  (XP Pro can do 10).
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314882/en-us
There can be -- and often are -- more than one connection per computer
pair.

That said, if you're talking about an "infrastructure" type LAN (e.g.,
with a router), you can have some large number of computers (don't
recall the exact number) on the LAN.  It's just that the more computers
are connected, the more likely that you'll run into the max connection
limit.

If by "peer-to-peer" you mean an "ad-hoc" wireless network, IIRC the
limit is 9:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/370b019f-711f-4d5a-8b1e-4289db0bcafd1033.mspx?mfr=true

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