Mac on Windows 2000/2003 servers
I am strongly considering buying my first mac (powerbook) before going to law school this fall, and had a few questions about compatability with windows-based servers. I know that the school file servers where the students' home directories and student organizations' shared files are located are on Windows 2000/2003 servers, in addition to the network printers. The IT support team tells me that the protocol that allows for mac machines to access these files and use these printers is not installed on their machines. I was under the assumption that nothing actually needed to be installed on their side, and that I would be able to access the shared files/use the printers through services for macintosh - does services for macintosh actually need to be installed in order for me to function in school with a mac? Are there any other incompatabilities that I should be aware of before purchasing a mac? Thanks in advance for any help.
Comments
If they are setup as simple file-servers, then the answer is an equally simple yes.
If they are using the Kerbros authentication method, then the answer is a qualified yes.
If they are using active server profiles, then the answer is a maybe... depending on settings...
And the whole "roaming profiles" thing is out, unless they install an AFP-capable server to share out the profiles for the MacOS X clients, and have the server tables in LDAP (not the default... but it should be). If it is not LDAP, then it is out (MS proprietary).
Oh.. and then there is ADmitMac that allows for some of this.
After that there are a lot of specific issues that might pop up (like specific software that might be required). I know that there are a few big online legal databases that are very limited on the number of browsers they support (like one: IE 6 on Windows).
You should inform your tech support that MacOS X comes with SaMBa integrated into the OS, you can even browse to the shares in many cases (depending on how they have things configured).
Best case: You connect to the network (ethernet/wiFi), open up the network browser, see the server, click on it, hit "connect" and fill in your user-name/password.
Next-Best-Case: You have to actually have to manually enter in the connection information. You select the Finder, hit "Command-K" to "Connect to Server" and fill in "smb://server-name/share-point" where "server-name" is either the IP address or DNS name of the server and "share-point" is the name of the remote volume you are connecting to (they should have that information at the help desk... they might not realize it, but they have it). Then you click "add to list" and you have a permanent bookmark for this information. Or you connect once and then make an alias of the connection.
Worst-Case: The help desk is clueless and they really do use ActiveDirectory.... see my prior post.
Oh... and Microsoft has never made the Macintosh and Unix connection adapters part of the default install, after all, that would make non-windows systems "compatible" (definite no-no as far as Microsoft is concerned). In fact they are mostly excluded from MCNE exams, so many of the windows admins don't really know anything about them... *sigh*... but the Macintosh adapter was AppleTalk anyways, and thus very slow in comparison to AFP over IP that MacOS has used since 9.0.
But you don't have to care because Apple has included SaMBa so that you can connect as if you were a Windows PC.