I am just setting up a small internet cafe with 8 desktop computer in a office. I am not very good with networking and would rate myself 5 out of 10. This is also my first time of doing anything like this. However, i am good with computer stuffs generally.

I have a router , network cables, printer and ofcourse the desktops all set up.

This is my knowledge of what i need to do. please correct me if i am wrong

1. Connect all desktops to an ethernet/desktop switch. ( i am using an 8 port desktop switch and an unmanageed switch so that the can adjust data TRANSFER automatically without having to be configured manually).

2. Run a network setup wizard on each computer connected to the switch, if the computer does not recognize its network connection automatically.

3 Open network and sharing center, Change advanced sharing settings, Click the arrow to expand, Home or Work, turn on network discovery, turn on file and printer sharing.

4. Rename the desktop e.g 1-8 and make sure the are on the same network e.g workgroup.

Here are my queestion. Please be easy on me if i got it all wrong


1. How do i make one desktop as the main computer so that it can control the printing etc

2. Where do i plug the main desktop to? Do i plug it with the ones on the 8-port switch or plug it directly to the router

3. what sort of ethernet/desktop switch do i use? Do i need a specialise one? Can anyone suggest please. Thanks in advance

4. What else do i need to do that i am missing out.

5. I read online that you need a server or can use a desktop as a server. How does that work out please?

6. I would also like every work done on the desktops not to be stored on the desktops as they have 2gb memory. i read online that they can be wiped out all night. i dont know how to do that. do i have to do that manually everynight?

Thank you guys in advance. Thank you.




1. How do i make one desktop as the main computer so that it can control the printing etc .. This is done through a simple printer share. You basically have all the computers part of the same workgroup, and set the printer to be shared. Then with them all connected to the network you can search for shared printers over network and detect it and add it as the printer to print to from each of the workstations.

2. Where do i plug the main desktop to? Do i plug it with the ones on the 8-port switch or plug it directly to the router. The info here appears to be a problem, as for with an 8-port unmanaged switch if you have 8 workstations connected to it, then there would not be a 9th connection for the router to provide DHCP as well as internet access. What you can do though is most routers have like 4 ethernet ports or more on them. Use a Cat5 patch cable to plug the port 1 of the router to port 1 of the switch. Now 7 of the computers will be using the remaining 7 ports on this switch, all sharing that single LINK out through the router. Now the 8th computer plugs into port 2 on the router, and since the switch is unmanaged and only being used to add ports for the computers to connect to, they are all on the same network and given IP's from DHCP from the router. The Internet port on the router goes to the modem, and modem connects to ISP through telephone line or Cable Broadband connection.

3. what sort of ethernet/desktop switch do i use? Do i need a specialise one? Can anyone suggest please. Thanks in advance Any cheap unmanaged 100mbps switch would work, you just need to have adequate ports to connect all the hardware. Any brand will work. I like d-link, netgear, and linksys for brands.

4. What else do i need to do that i am missing out. You may want to edit the user accounts on these machines so that the users are running as users and not administrators to avoid users from installing anything orinfecting the computers from attachments from their e-mail etc. You may also want to add content control to block inappropriate websites such as porn etc. I would also make sure the default password is changed on the modem and the router to avoid anyone from hacking it.

5. I read online that you need a server or can use a desktop as a server. How does that work out please? You dont need a server if all 8 workstations are WORKING as workstations each with their own content control enabled etc. The printer share is something that can be done by a regular workstation and served to other workstations. The only need for a server would be if you WANTED to use a proxy for content control in which a computer acting as a server between the router and the workstations has 2 network adapters one for local network and other for internet outbound connection, and the proxy is set up to filter where people can and cant go as a single location to control which sites are banned etc.

6. I would also like every work done on the desktops not to be stored on the desktops as they have 2gb memory. i read online that they can be wiped out all night. i dont know how to do that. do i have to do that manually everynight? There are a few different ways to do this which can be manual or automated. The best method would be to have an image server and every night the workstations after hours are pushed a clean image to the hard drives, this ensures that nothing remains from the prior use. I have also seen profiles configured to where no data can be stored outside of desktop and my documents, so you dont have to worry about people saving files in random locations on the hard drive, and its all saved on desktop and my documents only locations which are all contained as part of the user profile. This profile can be EITHER configured to delete all data back to clean state upon logoff or a system acting as a server that overwrites the same profile on all workstations with a clean copy of the profile after hours. The method of blocking users from accessing everything outside of the profile is probably the best method, as for the image server process would require licenses for each system that is covered by this process which can get expensive if your using Symantec Ghost for example to complete this. Also the profile method is not very bandwidth hogging, so you may only have 800MB to be transferred over the network at 100MB per profile per computer vs entire hard drive images that can be upwards of greater than 8GB for each system that is to receive a clean copy.

I have never seen the Ghost image used for Internet Cafe, only have seen it used many times for classroom lab use where colleges use it after a semester to wipe the systems clean of student data stored locally and refresh them back to clean state for the next semester to have a clean group of 30 computers in the computer lab.