OSX and WIndows integration help needed

S

Shadango

Registered
Hello all....

Newbie to the forum....hoping someone can offer advise.

My company is PC-based and we have a handful of folks --- 6 or so --- that need to be able to get email and internet access through our Windows Network. Internet access has not been an issue...And up until now, the MACs have run OS9 or OSX and therefore could run the old Outlook Exchange for MAC....This means that folks can view their email without having to download it to a local store, which is good since our company policy prohibits local storage of email. Of course, they had no calendar or Contacts, but email worked fine.

Soon, the MACs will all be upgraded to the newest flavor of OSX that requires Entourage for email....which, according to Microsoft, has no way of disabling local email storage. This presents a problem.

I guess this is actually two questions:

1) Can Entourage be setup so that it behaves as though it is 100% exchange server based (ie no emails are stored locally) ? A Micorsoft tech told me "NO".

and

2) Can the MACs be setup to allow the Windows folks to administer passwords, etc and to allow the MACs to talk to the W2K LAN servers/drives we have set up? How much security can be admistered on a MAC thorugh the Windows network?

I may not be asking the right questions, but it is a start....

Thanks in advance for any help you folks can lend...

Shadango
 
Your OS X Macs will be able to access your Windows shares. If you're running 10.3 or 10.4, open a Finder Window (Apple-N or double click on the hard drive or something) and click on Network on the left side of the window. Available shares should show up in the window.

(If the Macs a're running 10.2, you have to click on Finder (desktop background) and go to Finder's "Go" menu.)

If they don't, click on the Apple menu (upper left corner of the screen), click on System Preferences, and click on "Sharing". Check to make sure "Windows Sharing" or whatever it is (I'm not at my Mac right now) is checked.

Also, make sure your Macs have the latest point releases. For 10.3 that would be 10.3.9, for 10.4 it's 10.4.2, for 10.2 get 10.2.8. Software Update is also on the Apple menu.

We used to have to set the workgroup in an obscure utility but I _think_ that's automatic now.

The Mac may leave some strange files on your shares. It's best to ignore them. For example, you may see .DS_Store files, which I think is how the Mac keeps track of the folder window's size.

I'mt not sure about your other questions.

Doug
 
Thanks Doug....I was able to find the shares fine......actually much easier than doing so on a PC!

This is a step in the right direction, for sure....if we can get scripting, etc to work on the MACs then the problem may go away.... :)
 
No problem. Glad that's working for you.

I think I made a mistake when I wrote that, though. If you go to System Preferences-> Sharing and select "Windows Sharing", that will allow others to see shares on _that_ computer. Shares from another computer should be there automatically.

Doug
 
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