Windows to Mac SMB Setup

[noahgolm]

Hi, all. I've been working on setting up a VERY simple file sharing connection between my XP-running Dell Dimension 3000 and my late 2008 10.6.4-running Macbook. I have successfully been able to view my mac's files on the windows computer, but the other way around has been very difficult. I click "Go->Connect To Server..." from finder and enter

smb://<username>:<password>@<myipaddress>/ (Replacing <> areas with the real info, of course)

It then still prompts for a windows username and password, which I give. It tells me that the information given is incorrect! I have all the permissions set up on the windows computer, and when I try to connect via the network tab in finder, it says connection failed! Is this a matter of privileges, firewalls, wrong username, or anything like that?

 

[smirk]

I'm not a networking expert, so this may not matter, but are both computers set to the same workgroup?

Also, what if you just try to connect to "smb://ip_address_of_pc/share_name" to rule out any problems with the stuff you're adding onto the URL?

 

[joecool99]

I'm not a networking expert, so this may not matter, but are both computers set to the same workgroup?

Also, what if you just try to connect to "smb://ip_address_of_pc/share_name" to rule out any problems with the stuff you're adding onto the URL?

yeah, that all works fine. just want to know HOW to setup a daily backup to the network folder on W7

 

[noahgolm]

yeah, that all works fine. just want to know HOW to setup a daily backup to the network folder on W7

Trying to hijack my thread, eh? Well, I know that they're both on the same workgroup, but smirks's solution doesn't work either. It still prompts for a username and password.

Also, Under my Workgroup on the windows computer, it shows "Noah," the computer with the shared drive, as another computer. Isn't it not supposed to show up if I'm looking at the workgroup from the computer itself?

 

[smirk]

... but smirks's solution doesn't work either. It still prompts for a username and password.

Yes, it should prompt you. I was trying to rule out any mistakes that could be made with the more complicated version of the URL that you originally posted, that's all.

Also, Under my Workgroup on the windows computer, it shows "Noah," the computer with the shared drive, as another computer. Isn't it not supposed to show up if I'm looking at the workgroup from the computer itself?

Yeah, that's normal. So if you go into Windows Explorer and drill down to My Network Places\Entire Network\Workgroup then you should see your PC's name and under that you will see whatever shares you're sharing on the PC. I know what you mean, it's a little unintuitive -- you're left wondering why doesn't Windows know that that share is its own?

Ok, well if you shared a folder in Windows and gave your Windows profile sufficient authority to access it then you should be able to connect to it from your Mac by logging in with your Windows username/password (which it sounds like you're doing). The only other thing I can think of is to make sure you don't have a bad or old password stored in your OS X Keychain. Are you on OS X 10.5 or 10.6? Older versions of OS X weren't as adept at connecting to Windows machines.

Launch Keychain Access (in /Applications/Utilities). Select "login" in the Keychains pane in the upper left. Then in the search box in the upper right enter the name of your Windows PC. This should narrow down all the keychain items so that you can see an entry for your Windows PC with the description of "Network password". Double click that and check the "Show password" box and verify that the password is in fact what your Windows password is. Fix the password or just delete the whole record maybe.

Sorry, that's all I can think of here.

 

[noahgolm]

Well, thanks everyone, but digging through the interwebs has yielded good results. I found that I had to actually make a separate account on the windows computer (or enable the guest account). After doing this, everything works just fine. Thanks, anyways! I found it here:http://astahost.com/info.php/Sharing-Files-Windows-Xp-Home_t6245.html

 

[smirk]

I found that I had to actually make a separate account on the windows computer (or enable the guest account).

Just to clarify, it sounds like this wasn't working for you earlier because you have Windows XP Home, which has certain restrictions with regards to file sharing. Had you been running XP Pro it would have worked as you'd expect. Anyway, glad you got it working!