Access windows shares from Mac OSX
 

Still getting to grips at the moment with my new ibook which is the first mac I've had.

Can anyone advise me on how I can see and browse shares on a windows computer on the network?

Thanks

David

Hi David,
There are two basic ways to view/connect to Windows computers/shares.

They both use options found under the 'Go' menu.

The first is to use the 'Network' (Command + Shift + K) option, which will open a finder window, listing the network items on the server, this will list workgroups, and possibly domains for the windows machines (you might need to configure the SMB directory access option for that, but I think that is really only if you want your machine to show up to windows PC's)
You should be able to double click a folder representing a PC, and in theory you should see the computers inside and be able to connect to them.

The second way, and the way I use, and much prefer, is to use the 'Connect To' (Command + K) option from the Go menu.

You can connect using various protocols here (smb, ftp, afp).

The default will be to use AFP, which we don't want, so, here's what you'd want to type:

smb://NameOfServer/

then hit ok. It should then prompt you to enter the username, password and domain/workgroup for the server. Then you'll be able to select the volumes to connect to, and once you have done that, the volume will appear on the mac desktop and you can access it.

I use this on a daily basis to access my windows servers from my macs.

A few other pointers for you...

It seems that OS X does not like displaying shares whose name includes a space, so make sure shares on the PC don't have spaces in them. Also, under windows, a share ending with a $ is hidden, this means it WILL be hidden from the list of volumes you can select. However, you can still mount it, well, I'm pretty sure you can, if you specify it in the smb 'url'

For example:

share name is "hiddenshare$"
server is "myserver"

you could enter, in the connect to dialog:

smb://myserver/hiddenshare$/

and click 'ok' to connect to it.

you can also add in user and password info to the 'url' the spec is:

smb://workgroupOrDomain;username:password@servername/path/to/location

so if you wanted to, you could type all that in, and add it to your favorites for easier connection. One thing is, the password WOULD be displayed in your connect to dialog. you could simply leave out the 'password' bit, so the url would be:

smb://workgroupOrDomain;username:@servername/path/to/location

and you'd be asked for the password, and you could, if you wish, store the password in the keychain, which would be more secure than having it clear-text in the connect to dialog.

this 'url' specification system can also be used for AFP (connecting to Apple shares) and FTP too, for example:

afp://username:password@servername/path/to/location/

or

ftp://username:password@servername/path/to/location/

Rather handy don't you think? :)

Any problems, give me a shout (markuswarren@gmail.com)

Thanks Markus - spot on :D

Can you offer any pointers for accessing the printer which is connected to the windows machine via USB?

Thanks again

David

No problem at all.

As for printers, well, make sure the printer is shared on the PC side of things.

I'd then get the model number of the printer and search the printer manufacturers site for an OS X driver, then download and install it.

Then I'd go into /Applications/Utilities and then launch Print Setup Utillity. It may ask if it can search for printers as it cannot find any, so click 'yes' other wise click the 'add' button.

You'll get a Printer List window, from the first pop-up select 'Windows printing' then, if needed, select the workgroup/domain the printer belongs to from the second popup, then it should list the printers on the PC, at which point pick the printer, and then select a driver for it. Finally, click Add.

That should, in theory, be all you need to do.

However, sometime's it's not that easy. I've had problems connecting to a brother printer on our network (shared via USB on a XP PC) part of the issue is that it's on a different network segement and this seems to somewhat upset Print Center, you have to go into the advanced options and fiddle around a bit.

You might want to have a peek at the forums on www.macosxhints.com and www.macfixit.com and do a little searching. Some very knowledgeable people over there.