Networking PC and Mac

[ericeason]

I am trying to network my 15" 1.25ghz powerbook and my family's xp machine. I have an airport Extreme base station that connects to the internet via the modem. The powerbook connects to it using airport, but the xp box is plugged into the lan port of the base station.

The problem I am having is that the xp machine and powerbook can't see eachother. Every once in a while the xp box will show up in the finder as a dimmed out icon and when I click on it and enter my password, it says the original can't be found.

File and printer sharing is turned on on both machines. The firewalls are turned off on both computers. I pinged my xp box and everything went through ok. iTunes sharing also works fine.

Any help would be appreciated, this has me completely confused. :(

[smatanovic]

I am having similar issues, though both my Powerbook and PC notebook (winxppro) are connected wirelessly. I would love to find a fix.

thanks in advance,
SM

[faust9]

Do you have the file sharing driver installed on the win machine? You have to right-click network neighborhood and select properties. Then I believe you add a service which gives a popup box. That popup should have a service called file and print shareing or something like that. You need this driver installed so the winBox can actually be seen as well as allowing file and print sharing from the the little check box. I probably didn't explain this correctly but hopefully you catch the drift.

[ericeason]

Yes, the file and printer sharing service is installed on the xp box.

[faust9]

Have you opened finder and gone through Go->Connect T Server ?

If you haven't, you need to do this:

smb://10.20.1.1/winHome

replace 10.20.1.1 with the actual IP of the winBox and winHome with the name of the winBox directory you're connecting to (usually C).

[ericeason]

Well, I tried changing the names of the drives I was sharing and I can connect now. Anyone know if having spaces in the share name will make you not able to access it on a mac?

Well I have a different problem now.

I am trying to share the printer on the xp box. It doesn't show when I try to install it on my mac. I choose the Windows printing option, click on my xp box, and no printers come up. Anyone have any ideas? thanks