Home Networking / File Sharing through ethernet?

[wasimyaqoob]

Hello,

Just wondering...

I've got my whole music libary on my Windows Desktop PC and wanted to send it through to my PowerBook using Ethernet?

How do i go about doing this?

Regards,

 

[Killyp]

Simple really. Just make sure the two are connected together either by an Ethernet cable (make sure it's a crossover cable if it's just two computers connected directly). iTunes (for PC) has technology that comes bog standard with Macs called Bonjour which automatically configs the network. Simply turn on sharing in the PC (Edit > Preferences > Sharing > Tick box > Click OK) and make sure the Mac is looking for shared music (iTunes menu > Preferences > Sharing > Tick box > Click OK). The music from the each computer should appear in the left hand column which has Library, Music Store and all your playlists in it....

Job done...

However, if you want to have it so all computers share a central iTunes library (like I do, except for my MBP), it's quite different (very different) to that....

I shall explain that if you want me to...

 

[kyleaa]

The way I have done this is by using SAMBA. I set up a fileshare on the windows computer through windows sharing, then on the mac and do Connect to server smb://ipaddress/sharename/. It is by far the fastest method I have found, but I am sure someone may correct me

 

[dops7107]

However, if you want to have it so all computers share a central iTunes library (like I do, except for my MBP), it's quite different (very different) to that....

I'm curious. How different? Can't you just enable sharing on all the computers and keep all your music on one of them, so that the other computers just read it remotely over the network?

 

[wasimyaqoob]

iTunes doesnt work on my bloody PC (awful Windows).

I will try the SAMBA method.

 

[funkychunkz]

I'm curious. How different? Can't you just enable sharing on all the computers and keep all your music on one of them, so that the other computers just read it remotely over the network?

He means setting it up so that each computers treats an itunes folder as it's actually library: meaning it can write, organize, burn songs etc. that you can't do with an itunes shared library. The itunes function is only accessible with itunes running on the host, so either always keep it on, or defeat the purpose of remote access by having to turn it on.

 

[dops7107]

He means setting it up so that each computers treats an itunes folder as it's actually library: meaning it can write, organize, burn songs etc. that you can't do with an itunes shared library. The itunes function is only accessible with itunes running on the host, so either always keep it on, or defeat the purpose of remote access by having to turn it on.

So I'm guessing you can do that by mounting the shared folder as a network drive and pointing iTunes to it? Though that would mean having to manually mount it every time you rebooted (admittedly not very often, perhaps).

 

[kyleaa]

If your itunes sharing doesn't work, try installing Apple's Bonjour for Windows. It solved all of my Airport printing issues, and I've heard good things about itunes as well.

iTunes doesnt work on my bloody PC (awful Windows).

I will try the SAMBA method.