Hi all

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Plug in PC, plug in Mac, plug in ethernet cord. Share files on mac, fire up PC and presto! the mac files are accessible from the PC.

Sadly, not so simple.

What I want to do is:
- use a PC running WINXP to access files on a mac running leopard
- without installing anything on the PC
- I'm happy to use any protocol necessary: AFP, CIFS, SMB, FTP
- I'm happy to have to play around with other mac settings e.g. mac firewall, port forwarding on router etc.

So what's going wrong?

I enable file sharing in leopard, tell it SMB is the way to go, enable my account any let anyone connect to it. It gives me the address for windows-heads to use smb://sdhcp-blahblah.com.au. I fire up the PC and enter the address and it says get lost I refuse to connect, possibly due to an authentication/password issue.

Balderdash.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can do this? Short of getting Dave 7 that is.

Cheers.

In Windows: You should try using Start - Run - \\sdhcp-blahblah.com.au

it gave the whole can't find the address error (cant remember what it reads like in XP)

Shouldn't be too difficult, but sometimes is ...

First ping the mac from xp to make sure the connection works

on the Mac go to "System Preferences" click "Sharing" when it loads you'll see the names of your shares (if you have any, add some folder to share if you don't).

THEN click the "Options ..." button bottom right of the preference panel, a new window will open for you to choose the protocols, AFP, FTP and SMB - you need SMB ticked for the XP machine to be able to get to the Mac.

You should then go to "My Computer", choose "Map Network Drive" and then browse the network to find the Mac or try using the location address "\\themacsname" as mentioned above.

This last step is probably where your problem lies ... good luck!