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[loraan]

MC does not lock the database files in cases of dual simultaneous access. The real issue for you, I think, is that your libraries might end up out of synch. This will occur if you edit the properties of a file with MC#1. MC#1 will write those changes to the file's tags (if the file format supports tags), but MC#2 will not pick up those changes unless you explicitly choose "read properties from tags".

One option (which I use) is to use XCOPY or Robocopy (do a web search) to copy the library's data directory from one machine to another. But this will only overwrite one machine's data with the other's... it won't do a synchronization of changes.

[LisaRCT]

I have played files across network drives, which had been mapped.  I encountered no problems.
BUT . . . .

I did NOT do any tagging and file changes across the network, only on the local machine.  To prevent this I set the permissions to read--only.  Windows does allow file sharing so the network will deal with that aspect.

Each machine then simply imported it's library from the mapped drive.  Since each maintained it's own Library and database there were no difficulties I encountered there, and MC or MJ in each case was able to handle it.

Even if you delete or alter files on the main machine with the library drive within, the other's just adjust and correct when you "Update Library" (I select 'remove file which do not exist, and do this as well as an "Import" a bit more frequently than I would on a local drive.

[Omni]

Not knowing the internals of MC, I'm going out on a limb here, but this all seems kind of risky to me.

At some point in time, you are going to run into a reader/writer problem since two independent processes are accessing the same resource without any type of synchronization mechanism.

For instance, say a track is playing on MC#1, and you are batch tagging on MC#2 (with that song in the list of tags to be updated).

MC#2:  <batch tagging begins>
MC#1:  <song ends>
MC#1:  <read library info to update "last played" time>
MC#2:  <writes out new tag info for track>
MC#1:  <writes out new tag info for track>

MC#1 just overwrote what MC#2 wrote, and you'll be scratching your head wondering why the tags on MC#2 didn't get updated.

Again, though, I don't know the internals of MC, so hopefully I'm wrong.

Omni