Comments on: Win2K/OSX Sharing

Question: Win2K/OSX Sharing

five fresh fish — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:02:15 -0800

Switching: moving my Win2K files to Mac OSX. How?!

I've been beating my head against a wall all afternoon, trying to set up file sharing between my two laptops. They are both connected via wireless to an SMC "SMC Barricade Turbo Turbo Wireless Cable/DSL Broadband Router". I have enabled file and printer sharing on the Win2K box, I have shared the drives, I have made sure my account has a password, I have disabled firewalls, I've made sure ping works, I have jumped through many a hoop.

But not the right hoop.

Please hope me!

By: Rothko

Rothko — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:04:29 -0800

FFF, I've written documentation you can use to set up your Mac OS X to do Windows file sharing. You can then connect to your OS X machine from the Windows laptop and transfer files.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:05:46 -0800

It could be that the router won't allow wireless laptops to talk to one another in that manner... although, by the same token, it has no problem letting them ping one another.

It could be that I should buy a crossover ethernet cable and connect them directly.

It could be that I'm completely clueless as to the correct form of the "smb://" URL. The workgroup name is WORKGROUP. The computer name is GREYBOX. I don't know if there are other associated names. The shared drives are named C, D, E, etc.

I'm so lost that I've no idea what other information you might need, nor what to do.

The only important thing is to get files from the Win2K box to the Mac OS X box. After that is done, I might well drop the remainder of the Win2K laptop from a high bridge...

By: ldenneau

ldenneau — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:09:34 -0800

FFF, have you tried enabling good ol' FTP on OS X?

By: SeizeTheDay

SeizeTheDay — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:13:06 -0800

This thread worked perfectly for me.

By: Rothko

Rothko — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:14:50 -0800

The only important thing is to get files from the Win2K box to the Mac OS X box.

You don't need a crossover cable. You can move files setting up file sharing on the Mac OS X box and connect to it from the Win2K box. See above.

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 19:16:29 -0800

I'm not at home, but I have a similar deal, (though XP, not 2K). I set up filesharing on the windows box, then on the mac go (IIRC) Cmd-K, and use "cifs://servername/sharename".... so "cifs://GREYBOX/C" etc..

I've also used a terminal window on the mac, and just done "mount -t smbfs //server/share /localdir/" - though I'm not sure that there wasn't another option in there somewhere.

By: Invoke

Invoke — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 20:45:11 -0800

Get Putty SCP, turn on "sharing/remote login" in OSX, and simply SCP the files over.

As long as they ping each other, that should work every time, and is straightforward/easy.

I do not set up file sharing between windows and OSX on my network, since I do not trust Windows. It gets infected too easily, and I don't like the thought that some infection could go rogue and delete files from house network shares. There are several examples of such Virii out there, so that isn't all that paranoid. Therefore, I always just SCP files back and forth. Easy & safe.

By: sanitycheck

sanitycheck — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 21:20:46 -0800

Apple has a howto site that may be handy in your situation.

There are networking instructions or, alternatively, instructions for using an iPod (if you have one). I used my iPod when I switched from a Windows laptop to a Powerbook a few months ago and with the help of that page it was relatively painless.

By: easyasy3k

easyasy3k — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 21:44:40 -0800

Tried smb://windowsbox? Aside: I have found that my mac does windows style (samba) filesharing much more reliably than my windows boxes.

WinSCP on windows, "Remote Login" enabled on mac. Like putty scp, but better interface.

Plug any ethernet cable into the mac and pc directly - most mordern macs have autosensing ethernet ports, so no need for crossover cable. Much faster than wireless.

By: mikeh

mikeh — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 07:49:59 -0800

If it's not resolving the Windows system's name, you might want to try using the IP address instead.

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 18:34:54 -0800

Like so many others, I have little to no idea what I did to make it work, but it worked. I've rescued everything important, I think.

Thanks! The several websites mentioned in this thread were helpful. (One of them comes up as a near-top hit on Google for OS X Windows Networking.)

By: five fresh fish

five fresh fish — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 11:24:39 -0800

I should mention a few things for future frustrated switchers:

I used a plain ol' ethernet cable directly between the two laptops.

I disabled Airport just to be sure there was only one tcp/ip pathway.

The laptop assigned seemingly random IP addresses to the ethernet connections.

I had to enable a bunch of previously disabled services in Win2K.

I had to enable a few of the sharing services in MacOSX, even though I wasn't sharing from the Mac.

I stumbled across an arcane dialog -- I think accessed from the Administrator>Computer Mgmt panel -- that I think proved to be the key to making it all work. And, alas, I have no idea what it was.

I should have taken notes!