Accessing Windows Shares

I am considering changing my main PC for an Intel Mac Mini, however, i have a few questions

I do a lot of photography work and these images are stored on my Windows machine (actually my Windows MCE box). I'll need to be able to access these from the Mac. I can't copy them over to the Mini as it doesn't have sufficient space, and i'd rather keep everything in the same place and just use the Mac to access my files.

So is this EASILY possible with the Mini?


Thanks

Anio said:

I am considering changing my main PC for an Intel Mac Mini, however, i have a few questions

I do a lot of photography work and these images are stored on my Windows machine (actually my Windows MCE box). I'll need to be able to access these from the Mac. I can't copy them over to the Mini as it doesn't have sufficient space, and i'd rather keep everything in the same place and just use the Mac to access my files.

So is this EASILY possible with the Mini?


Thanks

Click to expand...

Piece of cake. I just did this the other day with my wife's iMac and my Windows XP laptop. Basically, you just need to configure Windows to share your files and then tell the Mac where to find those files.

How to configure Windows to share your files:
1. Right-click on the folder you want to share and click Properties
2. Select the Sharing tab
3. Check the "Share this folder on the network" box
4. Check the "Allow network users to change my files box"

This will tell Windows to let your Mini see your files, download them, and also change them (upload files to that directory, delete files, or otherwise modify the files). Rather than sharing individual folders, you can also share your entire C if you want. Also, you can give each shared folder a unique name for easier identification (other than the default name of the folder, that is). So if your photo collection is located in My Pictures, you can share it as "Photography". Next you'll need to point your Mini in the right direction...

How to configure OS X to access shared Windows files:
1. Open Finder (click on the smiley-face icon on the left of the dock)
2. In the top menu, click on Go and select "Connect to server"
3. Type in smb://ComputerName (for example, my laptop's name is "mobilesys", so I put in smb://mobilesys).
4. Select the folder you want to access (there will be a drop-down list available if there's more than one shared folder)

If you're running a software firewall on your computer, you will need to add your local network to the trusted zone or disable it when sharing files. I have some detailed information about doing that in ZoneAlarm for PC in my blog post here:

http://mcproject.blogspot.com/2006/01/getting-unwired.html

All of that might sound complicated, but all you're doing is giving Windows permission to share the folder and allow other computers to manipulate the files within in and then telling OS X where to find the shared folders. If you have any other questions, just ask!

I do it daily. I have so much Audio, Video and pictures on my 3 Windows boxes, I can't put it all on any of my Macs, so I just click Go, Network and the windows PC I want and put in username and password I can mount any shared drive right on my desktop. Takes seconds.

dtravis7 said:

I do it daily. I have so much Audio, Video and pictures on my 3 Windows boxes, I can't put it all on any of my Macs, so I just click Go, Network and the windows PC I want and put in username and password I can mount any shared drive right on my desktop. Takes seconds.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it's great. Here's a link to a wonderful article on setting up file shares between Windows XP and OS X: (includes instructions on how to get Windows XP to see OS X's files, too)

http://macs.about.com/cs/tipstutorials/a/xp_osx_sharing.htm

This is very helpful but....

I'm new to Mac and this very helpful but is there a way to permanately mount to the desktop so it will be available from startup.

-Sean

I believe you can set it up to log onto the remote drive when you startup/login to the Mac. Then again, there is no real reason to restart the Mac/ OSX on a daily basis so you could just leave it mounted indefinitely and just lock the Mac when not in use.

Thats

Hmm. I'll have to try try that, but doesn't it unmount it you when you log on at a wifi hotspot (which I do quite frequently)?

Yes it would, but you could simply put an Alias on your desktop and clicking it would prompt you to log onto the other machine.

Perfect

Perfect! This is exactly what I needed. Thanks!

-Sean

You can also set up your share to not require a logon, and then when you create the Alias, it just goes right to the directory.

This might sound sort of hazardous from a security perspective, but I'm running hardware firewall with my DSL modem, and antivirus (Computer Associates) on all my windows boxes. Since OSX is pretty immune to viruses, and everything else is protected, why not have the shares open and dispense with the formality of extra logons.

Does anyone know if there's a way to not have the Windows share show on the desktop? I want to create an alias, but not have an additional Windows share icon show up on the desktop when I open the connection.

FINDER > PREFERENCES > GENERAL...Uncheck "Connected Servers"

I have OS X and WinXP home trying to connect. Everytime I initiate from the mac, it asks for username and password. Between the two computers, I only have one password, and it doesn't work. I don't have the Windows one set to request a password, either, so I don'ty know what's going on. Any help?

Rcadden said:

I have OS X and WinXP home trying to connect. Everytime I initiate from the mac, it asks for username and password. Between the two computers, I only have one password, and it doesn't work. I don't have the Windows one set to request a password, either, so I don'ty know what's going on. Any help?

Click to expand...

When the password dialog comes up are you replacing your Apple user name with the XP one and then typing the password? You can also change your account setting in XP to not require a password.

Oh somebody asked about automounting the shared drives... just drag the drive icon to the login items window in system preferences and Presto Chango!!! your network shares will mount when you boot up, log in... you get the idea.

The username and password is the same for both computers. I set the Windows folders to share everything, but when I went through finder>go>connect to a server, it asked for the password and then said that it wasn't the correct password.

Make sure you're not trying to connect from Finder using afp

?? I'm a newb, what is afp?

afp is a protocol used to access apple shares. if you want to access windows shares, used SMB instead:
smb://computer-name/shared-folder