Networking with XP Home

[kerisbf]

Hi all.

Gotta question for someone...

My roommate is trying to gain access to my iBook through his XP box. I gave him an account and he was able to login fine when we were in the same room, but when I went to another room, he was no longer able to access his account.

All i did to enable this in my computer was to open Sharing in System Preferences, and enable Windows File Sharing. In his account, I clicked the box that said "Enable this user to access this account from Windows" or whatever it said. He accessed my machine through his network places, but now that i've gone to another area in the building, it just won't work.

He seems to think it has something to do with the \\ that my computer tells me is part of my IP address ("Windows users can access your computer at \\XXX.XX.XXX.XXX\username"). i don't even know what the \\ does. Does anyone have any clue 1) why he can access the account when we're in the same room, and 2) what the \\ is for???

-keris

 

[symphonix]

The different rooms are on different subnets, so you must point the Windows system to the iBook by its IP address.

You type the IP address of the iBook into the address bar on Windows. Like so:

//12.34.56.78/

You can find the IP address in Sharing Preferences (labelled 'network address'). Be warned that it might be dynamic which would mean it changes each time you connect up.

And the // symbols just tell it that the address is relative to the whole network, not just the current location.

 

[Jasoco]

I connected my brothers XP PC to my Jaguar iMac and for some reason I was able to follow the directions in Apple Help to get the PC to connect to me. But I couldn't at all get my iMac to connect to him.

 

[BlackMagic]

The first followup post (with the // info) was incorrect. The original (with \\XXX.XX.XXX.XXX\username) was accurate. Windows operating systems with the newer Explorer use \\ as shorthand to designate connection to an SMB share. If he can't connect, double-check your IP number and the gateway/router address on your Mac and his PC (could be in different subnets, so in this case, you wouldn't show up in his Network Neighborhood.

To the Jasoco: to connect to a Windows machine with file sharing running, use the "connect to server" in the "Go" menu. Type in:
smb://ip.address.here/sharename
The share name isn't really necessary; you should be able to get to this anyway. If this doesn't work, you might want to try entering your username on the Windows box as shown here:
smb://username@ip.address.here
Good luck!

 

[binaryDigit]

OK, when you say "go to another room" exactly what are you doing. Are you wireless? Are you unplugging an ethernet cable and then plugging it in the other room?

The "\\" simply means that the thing that follows is the name of the machine that the resource is located on. So if you enter "\\192.168.1.10\someshare" you're telling windows that the 192.... part is the name of the machine. If you have SMB setup properly, then you should be able to use the name of the ibook here (e.g. "\\myibook\someshare"), though using the ip address should work even if the name doesn't. That said, this should have no bearing on your friends ability to see your ibook.

What error is he getting? If you are physically disconnecting from the network, it could be something as simple as the ibook getting a different ip address after it reconnects to the network and gets a ip address from dhcp.

Please provide more details.