Help Networking 2 Macs

tman

First off, I'm no geek so my apologies to those far more knowledgeable than I. I bought my wife an imac for Christmas. I would like to network her mac with mine downstairs. Both locations have Ethernet and I do have a router (I have Ethernet ports all over the house). Can someone explain to me in a step-by-step way how to network these two macs? Or tell me where I can go to get instructions for a non-technical guy. Thanks in advance for any help.

knappa

Which OS are you using ? And what would you like to be able to do ?

tman

Quote:

Originally posted by knappa

Which OS are you using ? And what would you like to be able to do ?

10.3.2 on both machines. I would like to see all files on each machine from the other, transfer files back and forth (like updating our Quicken files on my machine and send it back to hers or transfer my itunes songs to her machine) and have her share my printer downstairs.

dmband0026

Networking two Macs is relatively easy. You said you have ports all over your house which I'm assuming are connected to your router.

Open your system preferences and go into the "sharing" section. Make sure personal file sharing and printer sharing are checked. If you are on a high speed connection (I'm assuming that you are) make sure the firewall is on on both yours and your wife's computers.



The rest should be easier than you could imagine. Get into the "Go" menu and select "Network" (or press shift+apple+K. Also, if your computer is setup like mine, you will have the network icon in your sidebar on all your finder windows). In the network window you should see your wife's computer (make sure you have a name for it). Double click on it and it will ask you for a password and user name.



Printer sharing can be accomplished through the magic of rendezvous. If the printer is hooked up to your computer and both you and your wife have printer sharing enabled your wife should automatically be able to see your printer from her computer, and should be able to select it from the drop down menu in any print dialogue box. If not, install the printer drivers on her computer and it should work.



Good luck. Any more questions, feel free to post them here.

magicfingers

first connect the ethernet cables to your computers.

Go in to "System Preferences" select "Sharing" then check the boxes next to each item you would like to have activated in both computers.

From either computer you open a finder window, select the network icon in the top left pane, select the computer from the list ( it helps if each computer has a different name, mine are named emac,imac,g4... etc)

click the connect button and enter your username and password and the computers disks/users should show up.

magicfingers

ya, what DMB said too B^)

magicfingers

also, turn on sharing in itunes preferences on both comps and you can then stream all your music between the 2 machines.

have fun, Randy

tman

You guys are great. I sincerely appreciate your help. Happy Holidays!

tman

1. I'm still having some problems. The password I set on my wife's i-mac has been changed or corrupted, so when I try to log on to her computer, I don't have the correct password. How do you find or change the password?



2. I can see my computer from hers, but when I select the i-con for my comp, I get the dredded spinning beach ball and must force quit the finder to get out.



3. I have printer sharing on on both comps and I can print from mine but not from hers

paul

to change or "reset" the password you need the original panther install CD



start up from it by holding C and in the apple menu there should be an option for "password reset"



you should be doing all of this from the computer you are having trouble with...



find this and many other useful troubleshooting tutorials in the genius bar FAQ thread sticky at the top of the forum.





make sure all of your software is uptodate on both machines and that permissions, the file system, were recently repaired in addition to prebinding and cron scripts being recently run.



edit: oh and turn off the pesky firewall until things are running correctly...



also only turn on printer sharing on the computer that the printer is physically hooked up to then make sure to setup the remote computer to used the shared printer from the printing pref pane...

magicfingers

to reset your password, insert your panther install disk, restart holding the "C" key to boot from the cd. Then pull down the "apple menu" and you'll see "change, or reset password" you can do it from there. I am telling you this from memory, pretty sure it's the apple menu. regardless, you need to boot from the panther install disk to correct the password.



While you have the computer booted from the CD, pull down Apple menu again and select 'Disk Utility"- then in disk utility run the"repair disk" then run the "repair permissions". If repair disk brings errors and says it modified the disk re-run the repair disk again until it returns no errors or modifications. Maybe the permissions are what is giving you trouble with your network. It may be a good idea to run these utilities on both of your computers.

BTW,The first thread in the Genius Bar forum has much better explanation for all these maintenance tips I am giving you. It the Check here first if you are having problems "sticky" thread.

Its unfortunate that you are having some trouble with your networking, it usually is as easy as we explained earlier,it was for me. I have 4 macs on a cable/dsl router and only did what I explained earlier, it just always has worked(shrugs shoulders). Just try the repairs and see if it helps. Good Luck, Randy

magicfingers

I am always a minute late......DOH

ya, what Paul said

paul

well... I was still adding things after you posted

knappa

Maybe it's obvious, but the computer that has the printer connected should be up & running when you try to print from the other Mac