Sharing between XP and OS X not going as planned

blackoutspy

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In my room i have 2 windows xp machins and 1 OS X 10.2.6. I have read a few things on the internet to help me to get them to share. So far i have made a work group that both of the windows xp machines belong to, and now for the first time ever, they share, but the mac is no where to be included. I have Windows File Sharing enable, and File sharing enabled on the mac, i also have a account with the box "allow to login from windows" checked. Neither of the machines see the mac, and the mac doesn't see anything. I've tryed the Directory program in utilities, and for the first time in the connect to server window im seeing something, only problem is its only my latop, (The Mac). I've tryed quite a few things, including the steps listed in "The Missing Manual for Jaguar" I have somewhat of an odd network set up going in the sence that the 2 windows computers are connected via a hub, while my mac is on a AirPort Extream that is connected to that same hub. If anyone has any idea what im doing wrong here, help would be much appreciated.
 
I've messed around with my iBook and my Dad's PC and have accomplished exactly the same thing as you are trying to do.
I have Airport (not Extreme) so I am assuming that the prefs will be the same.
1) Go to Utilities --> AirPort Admin Utility and open your base station.
2) Click on 'Show All Settings', and then on the 'Network' tab.
3) Uncheck 'Distribute IP addresses'.

That's it. Now, as far as the Mac and PCs are concerned, the Airport is acting as a piece of cable, or 'bridge'.
You should now be able to see the Mac from the PC and vice versa now. If this doesn't work, then post back here and I'll help some more :)

EDIT: Just to clarify, the PCs now shouldn't be aware that the base station even exists. As far as they know, the base station's IP belongs to the Mac. This means that you can access the Apache web server and stuff from the PCs, something I've never managed to get working through Port Forwarding... (anyone?)
 
Hmmmm well theres a step in the right direction. While the windows comps still can't see the mac, the mac can now see the workgroups, but no computer in them. Looks like this is going to be a long hard puzzle=\
 
Well, I don't know then :(
Try pinging the Mac from the PC and vice versa. Does that work?
 
I have a Mac/WINDOWS network and I have never been able to see my Mac from the PC. I simply pass files back and fouth through one shared folder on the PC, all from the Mac.
 
Yeah, go to the terminal and type 'ping [PC's IP here]'. Also try 'traceroute' followed by the IP. You can do this from the PC too, exactly the same commands. :)
 
In XP, in My Network Places, have you added the Mac?
I have XP and it was simple to setup.
 
You shouldn't need to add the Mac on the PC side. It should show up under "Network Neighborhood" without any tweaking. Of course, I've tried this on both an XP machine and one running 98. I don't know about any of the others though...
Also, if it's not showing up under Connect to Server on the Mac, I wouldn't expect it to show up on the PC...

How did the ping work, BTW?
 
From my Dad (familiar with XP): Go to Network Neighborhood --> Local. Right click, choose properties. Click the TCP/IP tab and it should be somewhere in there.
 
To find the IP of a windoze machine, go to start -> run and run command.com type ipconfig on the command line and look for the IP address there.
You can also ping as well as other network things using the Network Utility program in OSX, it is in the Utilities folder which is in the Applications folder.
I will try to write more later.
 
Well, from the mac to the PC the ping works fine, 0% packet loss. So it appears that there is a connect, but something isn't cooperating. Also N45800 how would i set the apple as a FTP? If my problem doesn't get sorted out that is
 
Have you tried specifying the PC's network name or IP address in Mac OS X's "connect to server..." dialogue box?

I've had a heck of a time getting windows boxes to "see" each other, so its understandable what you're going through.

Go to the connect to server dialogue, and type it in.

smb://server/share

is the format.

So, if my PC was named "edna" and the share was "pie", and the IP address was "192.168.1.102", here is what I would try entering into the "connect to server..." dialogue:

smb://edna/pie

and if that didn't work:

smb://192.168.1.102/pie


I could be totally wacked, someone tell me if I am, I haven't looked at that dialogue box sence 10.1.
 
well. Wow. That worked. I can't beleive it really. But now is the next thing=) How do i do it the other way around? from windows to mac?
 
Have you set the workgroup for the Mac? Use Directory Access in Utilities. Also, make sure that SMB is checked. The workgroup should be the same as the PCs.

Doug

BTW, you can also use the Network Utility in the Utilities folder to ping and traceroute.
 
I believe, on windows, you can right click on "My network places" and choose "map network drive".

If you have enabled windows file sharing in the System Preferences' "Network" panel, then you should be able to simply type in the ip address into this box on xp/windows/whatever.

As for making all this much simpler, the Mac OS X finder should remember what you last used, and pop it into the "connect to server" thing automatically next time. However, I believe you can also make an alias of the mounted drive, and stick it somewhere, and just double click on the alias to authenticate and mount the drive.

Funny story time
When I worked at radioshack, I would frequently do 'on the side' jobs for good customers, like hooking up their tv and stuff, for about $100/hour. Well, this one dude said he was pulling out his hair trying to make basic file sharing work on his windows xp pro and xp home network. I was like .. "piece of cake" because I had set up windows file sharing with 2k, nt, between freebsd and windows (and mac os), etc etc.

I read up on xp file sharing the day before, and showed up with my dad's snow ibook (osx of course).

I could NOT get those dang pc's to see eachother. It was amazingly difucult. Yet, my ibook could! The iBook had a better file sharing client than the widows pc's. I eventually gave up, realizing that I had indeed set up everything ok, and that xp simply sucks. bah!
 
I have the work group all set up on both sides, windows and mac. But they're just not workin together. The only thing that seems to work is typing in the address. Which is perfectly fine with me, now that i have at least some method of accessing files on my windows PC from my mac. On a different note, since you guys have been so helpful, and i dont know how many people would be able to help if i started a new topic, Im looking for a program to sync folders between my mac and PC. Mainly my music files. What i think sync means is that if i download a song on my mac, i want it to be sync'd to my windows machine and vice versa. Im still not good enough at apple script to know if i should be able to make a fairly simple script to do this for me, or if its a big enough job that it requires a 3rd party program. Again, any help is much appreciated:D
 
You could build a script to do this on the mac (or the pc, but I'd have no idea how to do that), and have the script copy files back and forth.

But, it might be a better solution to just keep the files on either computer, and have the share automatically mount (show up on the desktop) whenever you log in.

You can place items in the Login panel in "System Preferences" so that they are launched when you log in.

PS: Was your PC able to connect to your macintosh?
 
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