XP wants to talk Mac

March 21, 2006 10:43 AM

How do I make XP talk to Mac os server 10.2.8?

Ok, we have a new mixed network, Mac & Windows. I'm having problems making Windows XP consistently talk to a Mac OS X server 10.2.8. No, we will not be updating mac os server.

Here's the gist:

I set up Network drives on the PC and mapped the drives
yesterday. Today, when I go to access the drives via Windows My
Computer I get the following error:

"An error occurred while reconnectingX: to \\{ip address of Mac Server}\(drivename)

Microsoft Windows Network 221: The user name could not be found.

This connection has not been restored."

When I go to Run and try to reconnect via the Mac Server address
\\{ip address of server} it says:

"\\{ip address of server} not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrater of this server to find out if you have access permissions.

The user name could not be found."


I went to the mac server and added the same username and password that I use to login to the pc and got the same results.

Since I was originally able to connect the PC to the Mac, I'm not sure as why it no longer works.

Finally is there a good primer on Mac/Windows networking?

posted by Brandon Blatcher to computers & internet (3 comments total)

Further notes: The PC can "see" the Mac File Server just fine in Network Places. Plus it can connect to my mac (10.3.9 client) and my mac can connect to the PC fine. It's just that the PC can't connect to the Office mac server.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:45 AM on March 21, 2006

My experience is that if you log into the Mac server using the same user name as your Windows Domain log in you will have difficulty. I had to create a new different user name (account) on the Mac server. E.G PC log in is "auser", you should log into the Mac server with anything but "auser". YMMV
posted by Gungho at 12:58 PM on March 21, 2006

This is most likely related to SMB digital signatures and/or SMB password encryption. The first thing to check is that on the Windows clients the following settings in Local Policy Settings - Security Options are marked as "Disabled":

• Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always)
• Microsoft network client: Digitally sign communications (always)

Making that change leaves you slightly more vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, but such problems remain a remote possibility. However, the fix likely is not that simple. I'd offer the following links to help in your troubleshooting:

A MacWindows.com page about cross-platform issues
Microsoft KB article
MacOS X Server as a PDC - goes into /etc/smb.conf settings

If you need more resources, open the Console on the Mac and try to connect via Windows. Google the error messages related to SMB. Alternatively, try something like the following (I'm away from my Mac, paths and filenames are from recollection):

tail -1000 /var/logs/samba/smb.log | grep smb
tail -1000 /var/logs/system.log | grep smb

Google the resulting messages. The "grep smb" part should possibly be "grep SMB".
posted by McGuillicuddy at 1:06 PM on March 21, 2006