How to connect Windows XP clients to Mac OS X 10.4.11
October 12, 2008 8:35 AM Subscribe
Windows Server crashed. Need to create an emergency server on a Mac, for Windows clients. How do we do this?
The office Windows Server crashed and crashed hard. We can not use it. We can not access data off of it. The IT department is looking into rebuilding and trying to salvage our data, but in the meantime we NEED a server to finish a project this Monday. This server would be used for saving Indesign and Photoshop files for others to access. It would be used by about 10 people, two of them heavily
We have an old mac g4, with the non-server version of 10.4.11 installed on it. It has enough spare hard drive space to satisfy our temporary needs. All of our clients machines are Windows XP, with various levels of permission. The Mac is on the network with Windows machines and we regularly used it to transfer items from the mac to the (now dead) Windows server, so we know it can connect to the network ok.
How do we configure the Mac to now act as a server so that the Windows machines can access it? This may sound like a dumb question, but we need to do this quickly as we have a ton of work to make up and we can't afford to have someone tinkering around trying to make this to work. I'm guessing that if I go into the Mac and tun on filesharing for Windows, that should do it and the Windows clients will be able to find it via browsing the network.
IMPORTANT: Is there anything else we would need to do to make this work?
1. Some of the client machines have admin access, some do not. Will this be a problem?
2. The mac has a partitioned drive, with already established partitions on it. Will it be a problem?
3. Do we need to set up individual user accounts to the Windows machines to access the Mac, or can we just turn on sharing for everyone and not have to worry about usernames and passwords. Our interior network is not accessible to the outside.
4. Anything else I might not be thinking of?
The office Windows Server crashed and crashed hard. We can not use it. We can not access data off of it. The IT department is looking into rebuilding and trying to salvage our data, but in the meantime we NEED a server to finish a project this Monday. This server would be used for saving Indesign and Photoshop files for others to access. It would be used by about 10 people, two of them heavily
We have an old mac g4, with the non-server version of 10.4.11 installed on it. It has enough spare hard drive space to satisfy our temporary needs. All of our clients machines are Windows XP, with various levels of permission. The Mac is on the network with Windows machines and we regularly used it to transfer items from the mac to the (now dead) Windows server, so we know it can connect to the network ok.
How do we configure the Mac to now act as a server so that the Windows machines can access it? This may sound like a dumb question, but we need to do this quickly as we have a ton of work to make up and we can't afford to have someone tinkering around trying to make this to work. I'm guessing that if I go into the Mac and tun on filesharing for Windows, that should do it and the Windows clients will be able to find it via browsing the network.
IMPORTANT: Is there anything else we would need to do to make this work?
1. Some of the client machines have admin access, some do not. Will this be a problem?
2. The mac has a partitioned drive, with already established partitions on it. Will it be a problem?
3. Do we need to set up individual user accounts to the Windows machines to access the Mac, or can we just turn on sharing for everyone and not have to worry about usernames and passwords. Our interior network is not accessible to the outside.
4. Anything else I might not be thinking of?
Response by poster: Install a new server instead? Yeaaaaaaaaaaah, not going to be doing that.
Had problems making the Mac visible on the PC network though. Solved that by assigning the Mac to the PC network "Workgroup". Did this via Applications>Utilities>Directory Access
Chose SMB/CIF and then click configure. From there you can select the PC network in the pop up menu. Viola!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:45 PM on October 13, 2008
Had problems making the Mac visible on the PC network though. Solved that by assigning the Mac to the PC network "Workgroup". Did this via Applications>Utilities>Directory Access
Chose SMB/CIF and then click configure. From there you can select the PC network in the pop up menu. Viola!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:45 PM on October 13, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
It is designed specifically to be simple and gives you tons of permission options and power including some pretty neat and customizable email-notification functionality.
It's quite INEXPENSIVE so going that route should be pretty easy. Just be sure you get the IP config straight - it's easy, but also the more confusing thing for people who don't deal with network config very much.
Also, worth noting, is that it uses all three of WebDAV, AFP and FTP (and maybe more, that we don't use) and it works like a dream. We even have abstracted out domain-specific web access for clients who want to use our Crush server branded for their own clients using their logo and colours.
IMHO, it's your easiest and fastest way to get up and running cross-platform and it works really well on Mac. http://www.crushftp.com
Good luck, I know the feeling you're having.
posted by iTristan at 10:49 AM on October 12, 2008