Major networking problem between PC and Mac - HELP!

[PinkyMacGodess]

Well that's just the thing, there is nothing to fix on the Vista to Vista interaction. Everything there works as intended.

@eschw95458 any thoughts on the DNS issue?

If you can ping the macs from the Vista machines by name, then the DNS is working. If not, then you do have a DNS problem either creating your issue, or on top of a different issue. Appoint one device to be the DNS server and make sure that all the records are in it and that everything references it, and that it has the proper forwarders setup for outside resolution. Forget WINS unless it's actually required by something you are running as I believe that WINS isn't used by default in Vista.

 

[stjames70]

Hi,

I don't know if you have tried this, but I work a mixed environment using iMacs running VMWare Fusion 4 to run XP Pro. I had six workstations which were visible from both the Windows environment and the Mac environment. BUT one day, one of my Windows workstations just lost it. It had internet connection to the router, but it simply could not see any other computers in the same workgroup. I tweaked all the settings I knew of so as to make that one workstation visible to the others but to no avail. I applied the latest patches.....AND then I remembered one very little setting which had prevented the other workstations from networking together. The Firewall was up. Disable your Firewall in Vista and leave your computer open. Restart and give a little time for the Vista workstations to 'see' your server. If that works, you may have to open certain ports in order to maintain your firewall or you can simply leave it off like I do all the time. The Firewall went up because someone in my office just clicked on the 'yes' button when Windows asked whether or not to put up the firewall. Anyhow, try that.

 

[bsmith6470]

UPDATE:

I tried connecting to my Mac directly with all the appropriate Windows sharing turned on in 10.6.8.

I can connect to and map a network drive to this computer. I CANNOT see this computer in the Network window on the Vista machine.

I tried the same thing on another Mac on the network and was able to map a drive. I CANNOT see this computer in the network window on the Vista machine.

I also CANNOT mount or connect to another internal drive on this Mac. All combinations of share names/passwords/user name either gives me share not found or share is no longer available. Why would this be?

I could not connect using the computer name, only the IP of each machine.

If I try this same approach to connect to the shared drive on the server, I get nothing, either with name or IP address.

I disconnected the server from the network and was still able to map the other 2 Macs.

What this tells me is something with the settings on the 10.3 Server?

But what? Everything I have tried from others suggestions makes no change. As I mentioned before, DNS on the server has never been turned on before and this used to work. I am stumped.

 

[matspekkie]

It really sounds that the server + vista boxes are NOT in the same WORKGROUP.

 

[bsmith6470]

It really sounds that the server + vista boxes are NOT in the same WORKGROUP.

They are. I even tried changing the name to something other than WORKGROUP on all computers. No difference.