Win2K/OSX Sharing

August 16, 2005 7:02 PM

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!

posted by five fresh fish to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

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.
posted by Rothko at 7:04 PM on August 16, 2005

Response by poster: 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...
posted by five fresh fish at 7:05 PM on August 16, 2005

FFF, have you tried enabling good ol' FTP on OS X?
posted by ldenneau at 7:09 PM on August 16, 2005

This thread worked perfectly for me.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 7:13 PM on August 16, 2005

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.
posted by Rothko at 7:14 PM on August 16, 2005

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.
posted by pompomtom at 7:16 PM on August 16, 2005

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.
posted by Invoke at 8:45 PM on August 16, 2005

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.
posted by sanitycheck at 9:20 PM on August 16, 2005

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.
posted by easyasy3k at 9:44 PM on August 16, 2005

If it's not resolving the Windows system's name, you might want to try using the IP address instead.
posted by mikeh at 7:49 AM on August 17, 2005

Response by poster: 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.)
posted by five fresh fish at 6:34 PM on August 17, 2005

Response by poster: 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!
posted by five fresh fish at 11:24 AM on August 18, 2005