Is it possible to network win98 pc with intel mac??

[gorgeousgeorge]

Hi,

New to this site and very appreciative as just bought a new intel mac 20". First mac and floundering! So have just learnt heaps here.

I have a network of pcs - serving machine is an old pc running windows 98 connected to internet via cable modem and connected to 2 other pcs and the mac via cat5 cabling. I am having no problems connecting the mac through the pc to the internet but I cant access files on mac from pc or vice versa.

Does this mean i have to get xp??

Cheers
George

 

[nixgeek]

Have you enabled File and Print Sharing on the Windows 98 computer? It's usually not enabled by default. Right click Network Neighborhood and select Properties. In there, you should be able to enable file sharing and the Mac should see it.

Now if you want the Mac to share out to the PC, head to System Preferences and click on the Sharing pane. In there, you'll see the option for Windows File Sharing....enable that and the Mac will be able to share to Windows PCs on the network.

 

[gorgeousgeorge]

Thanks Nixgeek but you have to do all that to the windows machines to have them networked in the first place.

Mac support ppl told me about the preferences setting and for a brief moment I saw the other machines but no files but now I'm getting nothing.

I set up user names for my pc machines on the mac but i think i misunderstood what that meant - i think it was for different users on the mac and not ppl accessing the machine from outside (that is, my pcs)

Also set up account logons for the pcs for the first time and i see that the logins for those are supposed to be the same as the mac one so i'll try that.

Deafening silence considering i posted 10 hours ago! Maybe I chose the wrong moniker! It was a reference to an old time wrestler of the 50s and 60s.

Cheers
George (actually Georgina)

 

[fryke]

Windows 98 can be a creep about these things. It might be simpler to just use FTP instead. You can activate FTP sharing on the Mac and either use Internet Explorer 6 to access the FTP-sharing Mac like this:

ftp://username:password@IP-address

IE6 lets you up- and download files easily through FTP. The username/password to enter in above URL is one that's set up on the _Mac_. You'll have access to the files that the user has access to on the Mac. I.e. if you use your _own_ login/pw, you're going to see _your_ user account's files.

 

[nixgeek]

Thanks Nixgeek but you have to do all that to the windows machines to have them networked in the first place.

Not necessarily. If you don't want to share files from that Win98 computer at all but still want to connect to the Internet, it's not needed.

Mac support ppl told me about the preferences setting and for a brief moment I saw the other machines but no files but now I'm getting nothing.

There's one thing I forgot to mention: did you share out a folder from the Win98 PC after the File and Print sharing was enabled? If not, then all it's going to see is the computer name (if anything at all). Right click the folder and select Properties, then share out the folder from there.