MacBook Pro shows up twice under Shared in finder sidebar once as PC

Could you post a screenshot of what you're seeing?

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I'm thinking one icon is for the computer itself and the other is for screen-sharing.

~Lyssa

I can't find the documentation I need, but I'm almost certain the computer icon you see is the option to connect to the computer's hard drive & the other image is for sharing that computer's screen.

I'll keep searching for the documentation; I know it's out there.

~Lyssa

Is there a Windows partition on the shared computer?

I've found the sidebar doesn't always refresh itself well. Sometimes relaunching the Finder will force it to refresh; at other times a restart of the computer cures it.

~Lyssa

Ok, ive had this problem for ages and i think ive pretty much figured it out, your computer is showing your macbook over your network and through Bonjour (apples own wireless connection) Still not sure why it always shows it as a PC though, or as a server...

Anyway, I ive found where it originated from, if you go to System Preferences>Sharing, at the top you will see your computers name and underneath it will say "Computers on your local network can access your computer at:" and its name will be whatever the 'PC server' is called on your finder sidebar, in your case "tosha". You can test it by changing the name to something like "tosha1" by clicking the edit button, in may cases the extra shared computer will disappear, but, after a while it will reappear and will now have the new name. =[

Sadly I dont know how to stop this but I suggest you take screenshots and go to an apple store, tell them about the problem and hopefully they will have an answer for you, they know everything! And even if they dont, check their machines to see if they have the problem, and if they dont, look at the settings and try and find why.

Im sorry I cant be of much help but im getting closer to the bottom of this and im sure its linked to bonjour! Ill keep you posted if anything else happens!

p.s. Im not a networking expert either! Im just as stumped as everyone else!

It looks like Printer Sharing in addition to File Sharing can cause you Mac to show up twice in the networking section of the Finder. For me, disabling Printer Sharing, resulted in just having the Mac show up once. Of course as soon as I turn it back on, the PC duplicate comes back. Your mileage may vary.

Another likely solution to this is that you have enabled file sharing on your mac for use with Windows machines. You do this by going to Settings>Sharing selecting File Sharing on the left and then selection Options in the lower right. Once there, you would've selected "Share files and folders using SMB."

Once you enable this, your machine is broadcast on the network with two names: The "friendly name" you see next to Computer Name once you first launch sharing. You are then shared with the second TCP/IP name (something along the lines of mymachine.local). This name can be modified by clicking the Edit button under your friendly name.

With SMB enabled, this makes your computer accessible via Windows machines on the same local area network using the TCP/IP name NOT the friendly name. If you see a different name than what's listed under the edit button it's because you used unacceptable characters in the machine name, and the machine randomly generated an acceptable name for the TCP/IP network.

The two names you see in the finder, then - are the shared mac name and the TCP/IP name.

If you disable SMB, the second one goes away. I verified this. Even when SMB is the ONLY sharing option enabled, both machine names appear. I haven't tried syncing both the friendly name and TCP/IP name to see if this would consolidate the two listings.

I have exactly the same issue on my home network. I run 4 Macs, all Leopard, whenever I set up printer sharing on any of the Macs:
- the computer with the shared printer shows up twice in the Finder sidebar (as a PC server and Mac server) and
- my Time Capsule shows up twice in the Finder sidebar (ditto)

I have never used a PC within this network and have no idea why Leopard opens up SMB sharing at the very same time printer sharing is enabled. Here's the report of scanning open ports on a machine that shares the printer:

+Port Scanning host: 192.168.0.100+

+ Open TCP Port: 88 kerberos+
+ Open TCP Port: 139 netbios-ssn+
+ Open TCP Port: 445 microsoft-ds+
+ Open TCP Port: 515 printer+
+ Open TCP Port: 548 afpovertcp+
+ Open TCP Port: 631 ipp+

139 & 445? SMB is not and has not ever been enabled there! Windows sharing has never been started!

Note that these doubled entries would disappear if "Bonjour computers" setting in Finder preferences is turned OFF, but that simply kills the whole idea of "Bonjour"...