Couple of newbie questions

A

adiliegro

Registered
Hey guys...if these have been asked before, please forgive me, but I need answewrs. I have two questions about networking the Mac and a PC

1. I can see the network, save files to and from the mac to the pc, but no matter what i do, I cant print to the printer hooked up to the PC. It always says that access is denied. The printer is on, I can see it on the network, it is shared, but it wont print. I ALWAYS get an error. Any thoughts on what I can do with it?

2. This has to do with the filevault. Is it wise to activate this or not? Im new (2 days) to the mac, so I dont really know about this. Any thoughts on it as well?

Thanks!
 
welcome! you'll love it 'here'.


1) don't know. I tried this early on right after I switched, and never had any luck. But I stopped using my pc at home, so I just hooked the printer up to the mac. sorry, I know that's not the answer you were hoping for. On the other hand, I wonder if I shared the printer from the mac, if the pc could print to it...not sure. might be worth a try for you, unless the printer is a parrallel port setup.
Another option would be to get a usb switch that hooks the printer to both machines.
again, not the ideal solution.

2) if your computer is going to be around a lot of other users, and contains lots of personal/confidential data, you might want it on. But again, I'm not the best to answer this question. I don't have it on - only use it at home and my wife could care less about what's on my machine.

probably some more technical folks here can answer to the best practices with FileVault.
 
1. The printer sharing in Windows is not the same as that used in Mac. The Mac uses CUPS (Common Unix Print System) which is the same system used by Unix/Linux.
The easiest (but costly) solution is to install DAVE on the Mac to allow it to use Windows printing. Another option is to install the Mac OS X installer of "SAMBA" which should also allow windows printing to be supported.
I would rather connect the printer directly to the Mac, or print to a PDF file on the Mac, and then simply open this file on the PC and print from there. Not neat, I know, but it works.

2. FileVault is worth activating if you have any sensitive data on your computer.
 
Try this to share from an XP machine;

On your Windows XP Machine:

1. Log in as Administrator
2. Click Start>Settings>Control Panel
3. Then Click add/remove programs
4. Then Click add/remove windows components
5. Open the Other Network File and Printer Services section.
6. Put a checkmark in Print Services for Unix.
7. Click Ok; Click Next ( It will probably ask for your Windows Cd at this point)
8. Click finish
9. Close the add/remove programs window

Next steps will have the service start automatically, which is the prefered way to do it:

1. Click Start>Settings>Control Panel
2. Double click Administrative tools
3. Double click Services
4. Double click TCP/IP print server
5. Change the startup type to Automatic
6. Click ok and close all open windows.

Next steps setup the printer for tcp/ip printing

1. Click start>settings>printers
2. Right click the printer you want to share and select sharing
3. Click the radio button for Share as and fill in the share name you want to use. (Mine is hpphotos; for hp photosmart)

Now move to your Mac and finish things up.

1. Launch the Print Center for the Applications>Utilties folder
2. Click the Add Printer button
3. Change Appletalk to IP Printing
4. Enter the Windows XP Computer's IP address in the Address Box (Will probably look like 192.168.x.x, if you don't know go to your windows xp machine and from the Command Prompt type ipconfig, it will give you the network address for your windows machine
5. Uncheck the default queue radio button
6. Enter the name of the printer shared name that you setup on your windows machine.
7. Select your printer model, if you installed gimp print it should be there, if not pic a close model number.
 
heh - I new the 'big hitters' would come through.
I almost named bobw specifically, but held-off. Didn't want to put pressure on ya. ;)
 
Bobw: Wow, I never realised Print Services for Unix was in XP. That's a really good thing to know.
 
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