connecting Mac OSX to XP Shares

[The_LioN]

OK,

This is my understanding, if in finder, you click Go, connect to server your credentials (User & Password) will be authenticated by that server, now its likely you have opted to save them in the keychain so they dont appear every time.

If you wish to browse the shares, then it seems reasonable to me (Im still quite new to Mac & really like it) that you have to pass some credentials. For example, when connected to a Windows network as a domain member, I can browse shares no problem because login credentials are passed, but say if some one brings in a laptop and its never seen the network, then I have to authenticate (using credentials on that laptop) to connect to it.

Therefore, If you log to your Macbook as Joe_Bloggs with password JBlogs

Create the same user account on your Windows (server/XP desktop) & set the share permissions for that account. I suspect that if you dont create the account, you may be able to see the shares, but get challenged when you try and browse the share contents & have to pass credentials by clicking the Connect As button shown on the right in Finder & offer the right credentials.

I feel that even if this isnt quite correct or wholly applicable to your issue, you seem very close to solving it & may just point you in the right direction.


Noel

[Giaguara]

It's not necessary (or always possible or desired) to create another account with the same credentials. What matters is the share, the permissions for the user and usergroup, and possibly the characters.

Finder's go to Server can't deal with sharenames containing a hyphen since 10.1, but the underlying smbclient can use deal with it, as long as you have access to Terminal.
At least in OS X you can see some verbosity in the error messages if you open Console, but when you try to log in to smb shares from Windows... it either works or it does not. (Where do I get the Console and exact errors?)

Try if it's a Finder issue or smb issue, using Terminal

smbclient //ipaddress/sharename -W workgroupname -U username

If Terminal does not connect, then it is the smb issue, not a Finder issue. So far everything I've had were Finder issues from Mac's side, now I don't know what was changed, but connecting from XP does not give any verbosity or any clues in why it fails. No domain, not part of AD, so ip\account should do, yet it fails. As does account itself... I used the same account, logging in to the whole account from XP prior to installing 10.5. And now a share that I set specifically does not like to be seen. System Preferences enables to change and set the share access levels for shares and accounts, and that should be read and write for the specific account and the specific share. Grr.

[zynizen]

Actually, I could skip this step if I had a reliable NAS drive that both mac and pc can connect to and operate at the same time, any suggestions on a good reliable one?

[zynizen]

Ok, to update what happened, I finally installed leopard and on my macbook, I can connect to Windows Server 2003 machine just fine and browse shares no problem, without entering anything other than my user account login and password on the server.

Now to take it a step further, I was wondering how I can then browse those same folder locations using a VPN connection?

I've set up a VPN connection in leopard to connect to the server, and the server has already got VPN ready (set that up long time ago).

SO, I can connect and get connected no problem, but once I AM connected to the VPN through my mac, I pressed CMD+K and typed in:

smb://SERVER/shared, cifs://SERVER/shared

nothing. doesn't recognize anything is there. Is there another way to do this easily?

thanks

[moore78ad]

I don't know if I'll be of much help. I network my computers only once in a while (which is to say, when I get a new one I have to go through the process again, and again, and again). But I just did my desktop PC, laptop PC, and my Mac OS 10.4.x with little problem.

Couple things,
1: Make sure your PCs are on (and possibly logged on at least to start with)
2: I'm assuming that all machines have the same workgroup
3: I've used the same user and password for one account on all machines
4: Are you sharing files on the PCs?

Looks like you are on the right track, if you find an easy way to print from mac to a pc usb printer, let me know!

[Satcomer]

Originally Posted by moore78ad

Looks like you are on the right track, if you find an easy way to print from mac to a pc usb printer, let me know!

Printing to a printer on a Windows XP PC from a Mac running 10.4.x

How to Use a Printer Attached to a Windows XP Computer in Mac OS X

[nealt]

Try this:
TIP: DNS command-line configuration -- a final answer for disappearing Win shares in Leopard's sidebar?
Monday, January 7, 2008
We've reported numerous varied suggestions for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard problems with Windows server browsing and file sharing. Some work for some people, and some work only temporarily.
Kevin David found a solution in a blog that involves typing in some configuration commands in Mac OS X's Terminal command-line utility. The blog gave these instructions:
Type this in Terminal:
$ sudo pico /etc/smb.conf
Then add the following line to the [global] section:
name resolve order = lmhosts bcast wins
Save it, then disable and reenable file-sharing from the Network (Sharing in 10.5) panel, checking "Advanced..." to make sure that SMB is enabled. After a minute or two, your Shared should be back in the sidebar.
The blog claims that the root of the problem is a DNS issue, which is similar to what one of our readers once reported.
Kevin David says this edit works to fix the problem:
This bug was driving me insane until I stumbled over this fix a couple of weeks ago. Since I've done that, machines appear in my sidebar and stay there.
If you've tried this please let us know. We caution, however, that if you've never used a Unix shell command-line before, you may not want to experiment with this approach.

Also make sure you have sharing set up on the PC.

[nealt]

My reply came from Macwindows.com.