Setting 17" monitors on the box is normal. The CPU can handle it.
Most of the connection cables aren't long enough to do otherwise
anyway. :-(
Openstep 4.2 on NeXT hardware does Windows Networking (Samba). If
you have a printer you can even set up your entire NeXT machine as a
postscript printer from Windows and have at it!
There is also an Appletalk server available for it [free] that is a
double-clickable application.
You probably won't have much need for Netinfo. Nevertheless it's
easiest to use the Simple Networking application in /NextAdmin, enter
an IP address and set it up as a Netinfo server.
Before doing this, go into /etc and copy the default netinfo
directory s.t. you have a spare copy. So if you mess up your netinfo
database while you're getting started you can boot in single user
mode and start over. Also make a copy of the default /etc/hostconfig
file. [Call them hostconfig.default and netinfo.default if you
like]
More specifically...
cd /etc
cp -r netinfo netinfo.default
cp hostconfig hostconfig.default
If you have any problems let me know...
Thomas