Windows XP Pro as a file/media server

[Guest TMA]

I have a few questions about setting up XP Pro to be a file/media server:

 

 

 

1) Is there a way to password protect all my shared items (ie. printer,

 

partitions and folders) so others in the home network will have to type a

 

password in order to access the items? I managed to share a folder in XP,

 

but then Win7 just opened it and never asked for a password.

 

 

 

2) If the above answer is yes, then is there a way to make that password

 

permanent in each pc?

 

 

 

3) Is it possible to share an old usb scanner from HP (Scanjet 2400), also

 

password protected, without the use of paid software?

 

 

 

4) I have a ENLTV-FM2 TV Tuner card installed and working properly. How can

 

I stream its video/audio with the possibility to change the channels over

 

the network? I am assuming that for this task I will need some third-party

 

software, no problem with that, can anyone point me a good one? I tried

 

webcamXP which almost does what I want, only it doesn't stream the audio and

 

it doesn't let the end user change the channels.

 

 

 

This "home" network that I have here is quite big and has win7, xp, linux

 

and mac computers.

 

 

 

I know MS has other solutions for that, like Windows Home Server (or

 

something like that), or Windows 7 which is much more media capable. But I

 

don't really want to go to these solutions because 1st my processor is just

 

a celeron 1.6 with 1gb of ram (and I don't plan to upgrade anytime soon) and

 

2nd I want to also keep other servers for development use (ie. MySQL and

 

Oracle databases and ftp and http server, etc). I'm not so sure of the

 

compatibility between WHS and these servers, and I don't really wanna look.

 

 

 

Thanks in advance.