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PC to Mac Networking Problem - Help Please!

~Shard~

~Shard~

macrumors P6
Original poster
I had my 17" G4 iMac networked alright with my PC before I rebuilt it. I simply did the standard file sharing stuff on my old Win2kServer box, and voila, my Mac found it.

However, I have since rebuilt my PC (fresh install, all the way down to formatting the hard drives and installling a new NIC!) with Win2k3 Server, and cannot connnect.

I am connected through a router, and I can ping the gateway from both machines, and each machine can ping each other just fine, so there is definitely connectivity. When I click on my "Network" icon in my Finder, I see the name of the Windows machine, then click to log on, but when I enter my username and password, I get an error message that "The alias <ServerName> could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found".

Any ideas? I believe I have everything set up properly on my Windows box - I have enabled file sharing on the folders I wish to share, but perhaps I am missing further settings/configs that need to take place?

I have not foud out how to see my Mac on my PC either, but that might simply require playing around with Win2k3, which I'm not familiar with yet. 🙂

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance...
 
What happens if you try to connect to the Windows machine by a direct address (not browsing for it).

Finder > Go > Connect to Server > smb://serveripaddress/share

?
 
Originally posted by edesignuk
What happens if you try to connect to the Windows machine by a direct address (not browsing for it).

Finder > Go > Connect to Server > smb://serveripaddress/share

?
Click to expand...

I get the following message:

Could not connect to the server because the name of password is not correct.

When I get the prompt to enter my username and password, the default username is wrong - I bleieve it is using the name of the computer. I have to change that to "Administrator", then enter my admin password, just as if I was logging directyly into my box. At least that's how I handled things on my old Win2kServer box...

Any ideas? Seems like it should be something simple. (Always is!)
 
First of all, I should have looked at your guide before even posting, but I didn't see it until you mentioned it - sorry about that!

In any case, I followed your guide, but I had done everything you mentioned in it already. I cannot connect to my Mac from my PC either - it rejects my username and password. Likewise, when I try connecting directly to my PC from my Mac, I get the same error. And when I try and do it through the Network icon in Finder, it brings up the login screen, I change the incorrectly-filled-in username with "Administrator", and in the background, Finder gives me the beachball. After entering the password, I get the message I quoted in my first post, about the alias not existing anymore, then in my Finder window, which is open to the networks ("Servers" and the one for my PC), the icon for my PC disappears completely.

I am not familiar yet with Win2k3Server - is there anything else there I need to do? As mentioned before, I can ping both machines just fine.

Dunno what it could be, and why my usernames/passwords aren't being accepted when I KNOW they're correct.

Any help would be great!
 
Me too...

I've read the guide, and walked through the steps, and my results are the same. I'm assuming there is some sort of security or encryption setting on a windows 2003 server that is different than an NT server. My mac can currently connect to a shared volume served by a windows 2k machine that is part of a NT controlled domain, but not to a win2k machine that is part of a windows 2003 server SBS domain.

Kerberos, encryption, something???

Anyone have any ideas???

Thanks
 
Do you have an AD domain configured on your Win2k3 server? If so, take a look on Apple's support site for info on how to set up OSX to authenticate to AD. I don't have the link handy, but I found connecting to an AD server is a little different than connecting to a desktop and I got the info from Apple.
 
What is AD?

I'm going to need to get System 9 to talk to Windows 2003 SBS as well. If I make the guest account active,, you can connect as a guest to the default share, but nothing else. The options for entering a username aren't available.
 
ah, ok, active directory. There are several active directory applications on a win2k3 server, and dozens of options. Which ones do I switch which way to allow System 9 and OSX machines to log in to see file systems that are being shared via Macintosh Services?
For that matter, why is there nothing in the macintosh services instructions to tell you about this weirdness?

-j
 
Still trying to figure it out - please let me know if any of you figure it out!

Right now I'm relegated to connecting to my FTP server on my Win2K3 box and "downloading" files to my Mac. So, I'm doing things the stupid way for now. 😉 Hopefully I figure this out soon....
 
Originally posted by Westside guy
I'm assuming your 2K3 server is firewalled - what ports have you got open?
Click to expand...

ICF (Internet Connection Firewall) is turned off. I have also enabled Routing and Remote Access, but to no avail - is there something further in those settings that I need to do?
 
Go into the terminal, and run nmap on your 2K3 server:

sudo nmap -p 1-10000

This will show what ports are listening on the server. Post the answer here.

This should only take a few seconds. If it takes more than 15-30 seconds, control-c to kill it and type this:

sudo nmap -P0 -p 1-10000

(that's pee-zero; it tells nmap not to ping the port first)
 
Aha!

Step 1) Remember this: Google is your friend. 😀

Step 2) Go to the page linked below. Scroll down to where it talks about Mac connection problems to Win Server 2K3 (it has a section for OS 9 and one for OS X). It appears you have to change your 2K3 server so it doesn't require digitally signed communications by default.

http://www.macwindows.com/Win2003.html
 
Cool, I'll give all of this a try later tonight - thanks in advance for all the helpful feedback. I'll let you know how it turns out....
 
Success!

It works!!! Thanks so much again for all your advice - I went to the website you listed above and found all the answers I needed (and more!)

Man, there's a lot of crap in Win2k3 Server - why do things have to be so complex, hidden and stupid in Windows? Oh wait, that's why I'm using a Mac now. 😎
 
Cool! Glad it worked. Boy that'd be a bugger to figure out fresh - always nice to find someone else who's already done some of the heavy lifting for us! 😀

At some point I'm sure our Windows boxes at work will go 2K3, so I'll need to know this as well.
 
Originally posted by Westside guy
Cool! Glad it worked. Boy that'd be a bugger to figure out fresh - always nice to find someone else who's already done some of the heavy lifting for us! 😀

At some point I'm sure our Windows boxes at work will go 2K3, so I'll need to know this as well.
Click to expand...

Yah, it was quite fun to figure out from scratch! Didn't think it would be that difficult at the time, but I was definitely proved wrong!

Thanks again...
 
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