This is really becoming a sore point with me. Basically, smoke coming out of the e

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This is really becoming a sore point with me. Basically, smoke coming out of the ears!

After reading various articles on how to get this done, from Apple to MS to Googling, still I can't get it to work the way I want.

4 computers:

iMac with Mountain Lion
Dual boot computer with XP and Vista
Dual boot computer with Win7 and Win8
This computer is new, assembled from new parts purchased, but Win 8 is not yet installed​
Netbook computer with Windows 7 Starter​

The netbook is wireless, all others are Ethernet cables. Wireless works, currently listening to streaming radio via iTunes.

Only some hard drives on each computer will be shared.

Goal: To be able to read and write to any other computer, regardless of operating systems running, at any one time. And not need to continually "Connect to Server" when the Mac is turned on.

I want the system to recognize and connect automatically to whatever computers are running.

Getting the Windows computers to talk to each other has not been a problem, so far. It's getting the OS X to talk with Windows that's the issue.

Does anyone know of a good, and worthwhile, article on the web that is all but infallible with complete and correct instructions on how to do this? Apple's and MS's documentation has not been worth the effort. Both appear to be out of date.

What is working, to date, is very little.

From the Mac, I can access the Vista machine and read/write to the hard drives I wish. But, I cannot access the Mac hard drives from the Vista machine.
From the Mac, I can partially access what I want on the netbook, but I cannot access the Mac from the netbook. Dealing with Win 7 Starter is such a PITA, as you have to make settings changes in Safe Mode, you can't access those settings from the normal desktop.
The Win7/Win8 setup hasn't been attempted yet. I threw my hands up with this while working with the netbook. And at the time, the Win7/Win8 computer was not up and running.

Open to any and all suggestions, and will happily answer any questions.

Thanks.
 
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It can be done, but since I haven't dealt with this is a long time myself, I'm simply going to point you to some articles that may be of help.

How To Easily Share Files Between Mac & Windows Computers
File Sharing Mac OS X Lion and PC Windows 7 | Mac OS X
Share Files from Mac OS X to Windows PC’s Easily

Read these over THOROUGHLY and feel free to post back if you have any problems implementing their instructions.

These pages at least allow me to read the Mac from XP and Win7, that's all I've tried at the moment, for a couple of reasons...

  • Work got in the way
  • Just found out from the phone company, my DSL modem has problems. So, it's going to be replaced.

The method above isn't retained with a reboot, and that's what I'm ultimately looking for. But I'm going to put this on hold until I have the new modem installed, and then go from there.

I'll post the results when that is done.
 
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It can be done, but since I haven't dealt with this is a long time myself, I'm simply going to point you to some articles that may be of help.

How To Easily Share Files Between Mac & Windows Computers
File Sharing Mac OS X Lion and PC Windows 7 | Mac OS X
Share Files from Mac OS X to Windows PC’s Easily

Read these over THOROUGHLY and feel free to post back if you have any problems implementing their instructions.

Results so far are a mixed bag, depending on which Windows OS I'm trying to connect with. So far, no solution has worked for getting access to the Mac from the Network icon or in any Windows OS tested so far. But, using the RUN option with the Mac's IP address seems to always work, again with mixed results.

With XP, I can't see one external drive on the Mac. I suspect that's because it's NTFS formatted. I use Tuxera to read and write to this disk, since my original goal was to be able to take this drive to a Windows machine and access it. I'm considering reformatting it as a Mac disk. I chose NTFS because I wanted to be able to attach it to any Windows computer.

Win 7 is almost the opposite. The RUN command lets me access drives on the Mac that are not marked as shared. :(

But I need to make a comprehensive list/checklist of what works with what and when.

Will keep you updated.
 
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It can be done, but since I haven't dealt with this is a long time myself, I'm simply going to point you to some articles that may be of help.

How To Easily Share Files Between Mac & Windows Computers
File Sharing Mac OS X Lion and PC Windows 7 | Mac OS X
Share Files from Mac OS X to Windows PC’s Easily

Read these over THOROUGHLY and feel free to post back if you have any problems implementing their instructions.

I don't have what I want, but I can at least get files moved/copied when and where I want them.

The only Windows OS that works the way I want it to with Mountain Lion is XP. This is the only OS where I can be using XP and access the Mac via the network icon in Windows Explorer, and only see the shared folders. (I currently don't have any folders where some files are shared and some are not.) Using Vista, Win7, and Win8, I have to use the Run command as mentioned in two of the articles you mentioned.

The downside of using the Run command is the sharing settings of folders and drives/partitions on the Mac are totally ignored. Since I'm the only user of the computers, security issues of this are not a high priority, but if there were other users, and I didn't want them to have access to the boot drive/partition for instance, this is not a good solution.

Networking between the Windows computers was a piece of cake.

If you've got any more suggestions or questions, I'll be happy to reply. I consider the current way I've managed to get things done to be a step backwards in computing time, not what it should be today.
 
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I've gotten pretty close to what I was looking for, but not completely.

In the 4 Windows installations I have networked, I can now access the drives on the Mac that I want, and only those drives are showing in Windows Explorer. But file and folder sharing settings are apparently ignored.

If anyone reading this wants to know how I accomplished it, please read the following thread in Apples forums: https://discussions.apple.com/message/22962884#22962884
 

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