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sm8000

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 30, 2002
18
0
Chicago
My office has a department with Mac users, but a couple of them are also Windows users. Since these Macs don't log into our domain, nor do they use a Novell login, they have a quota of our fileserver allocated for their shared drive. However they've asked if their Windows users can gain access to this drive.

We can attach them to it all right, but there is some concern from my co-workers that files made on the Macs would get corrupted after being edited by the PCs. I don't anticipate any problem of this sort, but are there precautions I should be aware of? The Mac users create and save files made in Adobe, Quark, and MS Office apps.
 

sm8000

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 30, 2002
18
0
Chicago
I guess not so much corruption as compatibility, interoperability, conversion, etc... one guy mentioned something about "resource fork" - any thoughts on that?
 

yellow

Moderator emeritus
Oct 21, 2003
16,018
6
Portland, OR
Resource forks don't show on the Mac when an SMB share is mounted, but on the Windows side, users will see Name and ._Name (the latter being the resource fork). However, the use of the resource fork is HEAVILY depricated in OS X and you will see them less and less. As long as the file has the proper file extension, no one should have any problems.

You may want to consider Active Directory. I have plenty of users that have both Macs and PCs bound to AD and share their data between their 2 (or more) computers.

Having re-read your post.. there's no problem, as long as users REMEMBER to put the proper file suffix on the files! And of course, everyone needs to remember to back up data, as corruptions occur, but it's not necessarily Windows or Mac OS X's fault. **** happens.

ALSO (IMPORTANT): Remind the Mac users that they CANNOT have illegal characters in their file names if they are saving on a Windows share. These include (but may not be limited to): \ | / ? : * " < >
 

sm8000

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 30, 2002
18
0
Chicago
Thanks very much for this info, I'll share it with our admins. We do have AD implemented as well, but I'm pretty sure the fileserv is Netware. Anyways, I'll pass this along, thanks again.
 
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