What client server do you guys recommend? Any good free ones that you know of?

https://www.guildftpd.com/

FTP Guild is by far the best I've used and yes it's free

Thanks. I have heard other good things about that one.

I use windows xppro and it works fine

If you are still looking, there are several at:
www.oldversion.com scroll to the bottom under the headings of "Enterprise" and "FTP."
I'm partial to the 3Com Daemon package because it does FTP & TFTP and you can watch the file progress.
Also try:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FTP_servers

Good luck.