scan said:
interesting. anyone out there succesfully network a mac and pc together?
It's not the networking of the Mac and the PC that seems to be a problem, it's if you bring a printer into the equation and want to wirelessly make it available to machines on the network. My PCs and Macs are all working together very nicely -- can access the internet, can share files, are getting all the benefits of wired/wireless networking. I had the feeling, though, that trying to configure things so that they could all share a printer would be an exercise in frustration (on the PC side, not the Mac side), so made life easy for myself by just deciding to give the main PC its own printer and then sharing the other printer wirelessly via Airport Express just between the two Macs (and any other Mac that I might get in the future). The main router is a Linksys WRT54Gx2 and it works very well with the wired PC and the other wireless PC and the two Macs.
There are instructions for networking a printer with a PC as well as with a Mac in the manual that comes with the Airport Express device, but it sounds much more complicated than it was setting up the Macs. Since I am not planning to be using that old PC much any more, I decided to save myself a hassle and just put a printer directly on it in the off-chance that at some point I might decide I want to print something while using that machine.
All of this doesn't really help someone who is trying to network a printer between a Mac and a PC, though..... OK, let's see. All I can suggest is to first of all check to be sure that your printer is compatible with being shared on a network. I seem to remember hearing that many Canon models are not. Some printers now come with an ethernet port so that they can be wired or wirelessly shared, but many do not. My printer is an HP Photosmart 8450 and it does have the ethernet port, but I didn't need it in this instance. Instead I have plugged the USB cable from the printer directly into the Airport Express, which is in turn plugged into a surge protector. There is no physical connection now between the printer and the two Macs. If I had not gotten the Airport Express I could have plugged an ethernet cable from the printer directly into ethernet port in the router, which would have made it accessible to all computers on my network, but I did not choose to do that because of the inevitable PC configuration issues which would have resulted and I just wanted to share that printer wirelessly only between the Macs.
Be sure that you've actually installed the printer software on both machines you've networked. That's a step which can easily be overlooked but it needs to be done.
**Edited to Add: I just re-read your posts and I see that you have not done that. YES, you need to install the printer software on any machine in the network which is to share the printer.
There are several things which must be configured in each computer to ensure that sharing goes smoothly. In the Mac it's much simpler, involving the use of "Bon Jour" as well as clicking the sharing boxes. With a PC it's more involved than that, as it's not just a matter of clicking the sharing boxes that say "share this printer," it also involves providing the machine with the printer's sharing data (TC/IP, all that).
I hope this helps a little. I'm sure you're frustrated by this process, which on the surface seems so simple but can be fraught with complications when a PC is involved.... You might want to ring up or visit your local Apple store and see if they can walk you through this step-by-step. I'm sure they've had this sort of question come up before. Good luck!
OTB