Connecting to A Windows XP Shared Folder

I've had this problem for about a month now. I'm running 10.4.11 on my Mac. I was fairly certain the problem began after a recent update the my copy of Windows XP. Today I was finally able to prove that correct.

At a recent meeting in my office, I updated Win XP to SP3. It was several days after that I tried to connect my Mac to the My Documents folder on Windows and begain experiencing the problem described here. Unfortunately I didn't tie it together until today.

I just now uninstalled SP3 on XP and wouldn't you know it, I was able to connect my Mac to the My Documents folder on Windows again! HOORAY!!! Hope this helps someone else!

Hi MG84, and a warm welcome to the forums! 🙂

Thanks for the post & tip, thank you! 🙂

Most Windows® Security updates seem to make it more difficult for Macs to connect.

Ok ... first off, I apologize for piggybacking my question to a somewhat unrelated topic, HOWEVER, for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to create a new post without replying to an existing topic.
I'm a PC user trying to help a friend with a Mac (I think he's using OS 10.4). We're on a college campus, trying to access a shared folder which is located on one of the campus file servers (running Windows Server 2003). My friend's Mac, like my Dell PC is joined to the campus public network. For me, all I have to do is click on Start and then Run, and type in \\fileserver\share. When I press OK, I get a prompt for my username, password, and domain. I enter that information and bingo ... I'm presented with the folder as if I were on one of the university's computers. There has to be a way to do that on a Mac, but I cannot figure it out. Any help would be appreciated.

This thread seems to be closely related to my recent networking success, so I will post my after-action notes. This is my best recollection of what I did. I hope it is helpful. But it certainly is unguaranteed … since I was soliciting help from others and stumbling along without a clear understanding of what I was doing. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary …

I am running a small home network using a 2Wire DSL Home Portal 1000SW that is wired to my desktop Mac (Dual 1 GHz G4, OS 10.5.6) via Ethernet. The 2Wire device establishes a wireless network for my Toshiba XP HE SP3 laptop. My Epson Stylus Photo R280 printer is attached to the Mac via USB.

My objectives were to do file-sharing between the machines and to print from the laptop to the R280 over the wireless network. The initial state of the network was that both machines had full access to the Internet via the 2Wire Home Portal.

My initial actions did not produce success but they did indicate several separate issues, so I posted separate queries on discussion boards at Apple and at Microsoft and sent some other questions to the Support desk at 2Wire.

The Microsoft query produced the first good advice. Steve Winograd advised me that I needed to activate the Server service on the laptop (running XP) and provided step-by-step instructions to start the Server service:
1. Open a command prompt window: Start > All Programs > Accessories >
Command Prompt.
2. Type this line at the prompt net start server then press Enter.
3. Make sure that "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks" is
enabled in the properties for the LAN connection.

In addition, Steve provided instructions for configuring the Server service to start automatically when Windows starts:
1. Click Start > Run.
2. Type "services.msc" in the box and click OK.
3. Scroll down the list of services and click "Server".
4. Set the Startup type to Automatic.
5. If the service status is Stopped, click Start.
6. Click OK.

In addition to help from the Microsoft discussion group, I shortly received a response to my 2Wire query, from John at 2Wire Support. He said that officially, 2Wire does not support file and printer sharing, because the HomePortal doesn't (can't) do anything to block it on the local network - it's just not built that way. Further, he said it was OK to leave the computer firewalls off since the computers are behind a router that does SPI IP-NAT firewalling. Then John suggested shutting everything down … power off … and restarting in the following sequence;
1. Power up the 2Wire Home Portal. When it is fully up,
2. Turn on the XP machine, and when it is fully booted,
3. Turn on the Mac.
Then use Internet Explorer on the XP machine with the browser entry \\www.xxx.yyy.zzz\ (the IP address of the Mac).

I went to the XP machine and set some of the folders for sharing by right-clicking the folder, choosing Sharing and Security and turning ON the boxes for Share This Folder … and for Allow Network Users …

At this point the laptop was visible from the Mac. It is found on the left of a Finder screen and I could sit at the Mac and access the shared folders on the XP laptop, moving files to the Mac as desired.

I installed a Bonjour version of the R280 printer on the XP laptop. Installation was successful because I had the Epson disc and could give the laptop access to the proper driver. But the XP laptop resolutely refused to use this version of the printer.

However, I used the Microsoft Printer Wizard to add a version of the R280 to the laptop. This successfully prints files from the XP laptop to the Mac-attached Epson R280 printer over the wireless hookup. Amazing.

At this point I declared victory.

I still have some issues with my Mac, but evidently these problems don’t affect file-sharing and print-sharing. My initial query to the Apple board led someone to advise me to search the archives. I had already done this, of course, finding lots of questions and not many answers. I posted a revised query on another Apple board and got a suggestion, which I will try out to see if it will resolve the lingering issues.

DICK

If you don't mind me piling on here, let me ask a related but even more fundamental question: I've got a PC running with a Windows (XP) share on the home LAN, and I can connect to it using the Finder's Go->Connect to Server function. But the Finder won't display the Windows share in the Network window. (This machine is running 10.4.11.) Right next to it is an older Mac running 10.3.9, and its Finder displays the Windows share in the Network window just fine. I've gone through all the Finder settings and preferences and can't find anything related to discovering Windows shares. What changed from 10.3? Is this a matter of requiring Bonjour to be installed on the Windows machine?

Thanx - Andy