Connection Limit on Peer-to-Peer Network

The company I just got hired at is running a peer-to-peer network with about 30 workstations. The OS’s are 2000Pro, XP Home, and XP Pro. We have a reception desk that is running XP Home that has a shared folder with about 12 Excel sheets in it. From what I understand, XP Home will only allow 5 connections to a shared folder at one time, which seems to be true. The question is why would a workstation be denied access, while two or three others can connect without any problems? I tried restarting and kicking everybody else off, but sometimes one computer will get denied no matter what I try.

By the way, I am trying to get a server, but this is a non-profit company that doesn’t exactly have an IT budget. Thanks for any help.