In a local area network (LAN), a server is a computer that shares its resources with other computers, the clients.

Typically, with LANs, a server is a powerful computer with extended operating system functionality specifically designed to handle large amounts of network requests and multiple users, each with distinctive access rights. The client computers then typically cannot share resources, but only access the resources on the server.

By contrast, in a peer network, every computer can act as a server or client or both.

Use the &link_wpnetgrp; to view all servers that are currently sharing resources with the LAN.