NT Server and G4/G5

rickself

rickself

Registered
HI all
We have a small network...4 Macs and 4 pc's networked into an NT Server.
The G4 OS9 and a G4 10.3.9 have no problem seeing long file names. But one G4 cuts the filenames down pc style, as does the G5. I can't figure out if the problem is on the NT side or the Macs. Any help, please, to which direction I should be looking?
Thanks,
Rick
 
How are these systems connecting? NT 4.0 Server has AppleTalk built into it, are you using AppleTalk with these systems? Or SMB?

Remember, AppleTalk is not active by default in later versions of Mac OS X.
 
Both G4 and G5 are running 10.3.9.
Both are set to Make Appletalk Active and Automatically.

And, sorry, I'm drawing a blank on what SMB is...I should know this!
 
rickself said:
And, sorry, I'm drawing a blank on what SMB is...I should know this!
Click to expand...
SMB is the native networking protocol of Windows. Apple implements it using Samba in Mac OS X.

Odds are you are connecting via SMB, and NT wants to restrict the names for that protocol to the 8.3 convention.

If you go to the Directory Access app (Applications/Utilities/Directory Access) you can uncheck SMB. This will let you connect via AppleTalk rather than SMB (which is most likely what it is defaulting to currently).
 
You are o-so-correct. I unchecked that SMB box. Is there anything else in Directory Access that I need to be concerned with?
 
rickself said:
Is there anything else in Directory Access that I need to be concerned with?
Click to expand...
No... but just remember that that is where the Windows networking stuff is. If you need to connect to a Windows system that doesn't understand AppleTalk, you'll need to re-enable SMB. Also, that is were you set up the workgroup name for Windows networking (by default it is set to WORKGROUP).
 
You mean, I could set up a group called, say, Prepress that would keep the Macs separate from the pc's and make them easier to identify?
 
Yes, but in the case of your network just keeping it off is the best course of action. But with later Windows servers (Windows 2000 and later I believe) you wouldn't run into the 8.3 problem like with NT 4. At the same time, Microsoft dropped support of AppleTalk in later versions, which would cut out the Mac OS 9 systems.

Actually, as long as your NT Server is protected, it should be a great server. I worked with a number of Mac networks that used them over the years.
 
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