need help/info, file sharing from main comp in office....

[Iroc]

Hey all, I need help, advice and info from the great pcmech collective

Heres the scenario:

Small office I work at with 4 other autocad workers. Im the computer guy there.
We want to move all our drawing files to one main computer that would serve them across the network for whom ever needs them. Currentlly each person's computer holds the drawings that person has created. All the machines are XP pro.

What I'm concerned with is if two people open the same file and are saving their work, what stops them from overwriting each other's changes?

Thanks for your time, Jason

[bailey]

you create a folder where they can keep there own files in there own folder and password protect the folders

[Iroc]

we wanted to get away from each user having their own area, its creating duplicates

I would divide it up by years like this...

C:\dwg\04
C:\dwg\03
C:\dwg\02
C:\dwg\01
C:\dwg\00
C:\dwg\99
C:\dwg\98
...

[yellohut]

I believe that if one person is currently using a file, then no one else would be able to manipulate it. I could be wrong though, I'm not famliiar with many autocad programs.

[Iroc]

I did some testing. 3 files on the file server. One .rtf (wordpad), one .tif (paint shop pro) and one .dwg (autocad).

Autocad was the only one that brought up a pop up message that said something to the effect of: This file is currently in use or is read only. Do you want to open as read only.

So I guess this is dependant on the program rather than the operating system.