Unknown "PC Servers" in Finder

Question

Level 1

19 points

Unknown "PC Servers" in Finder

My home network runs on an Airport Extreme. We have two MacBook Pros running El Capitan, an old G5 iMac running OS 10.5.8, a Bonjour networked laser printer, a wireless scanner/printer, a smart TV and a "micro cell" signal booster for my mobile phone. There are three shared devices showing up in the finder of my old G5 iMac that identify themselves as "PC Servers". Two of the three devices use names that are variations of my wife's MacBook Pro name: “******” Macbook Pro". The two device names are "jjmacbookpro" and "MacBook Pro-b0ae". The third device has the identity "npide8e69. I've added a picture of the relevant section of the finder window.

Demonstrating my networking ignorance, I'm worried this "PC Servers" are bots, or something similar, that have infected my wife's laptop. Thoughts? How can I identify what these "PC Servers" are? When I highlight them and choose "Get Info" there's no information other than "Kind: PC Server".

MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2009), OS X El Capitan (10.11), null

Posted on Feb 24, 2016 9:14 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 24, 2016 2:53 PM in response to Seat 7A

This should be totally innocuous. Your wife's macbook probably has file sharing activated, and within that file sharing using smb.

You can go to System Preferences->Sharing on that machine, click on File Sharing, and then click the Options button and see if it looks somewhat like this:

The "PC" server is just the mac serving files over smb. You can turn that option off, if you like, or restrict its access to specific user accounts on that mac.

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Answer 2

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,684 points

Feb 24, 2016 2:30 PM in response to Seat 7A

Luis Sequeira1 is probably right, these names are normally associated with Macs on your network running Windows sharing.

I'd recommend disabling file sharing & all other sharing services unless you actually use them. It can reduce this confusion & provide better security (each service can have it's own weaknesses).

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Answer 3

Seat 7A Author

Level 1

19 points

Feb 24, 2016 2:52 PM in response to Luis Sequeira1

That's it! I followed your instructions and they're gone. THANKS Luis.

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