airport networking with windows?

[switchedanhappy]

hello all, i have got an interesting challenge to meet. i am giving my pee cee to my mom since i got a mac. (im running xp home on the pc and 10.3.2 on the mac) the pc is wirelessly connected to the airport with a linksys pc card.(802.11g), and the mac is directly connected to the airport. i want to network the two so thatwe can exchange files. any suggestions? 'cause ive never set up a network before. thx everybody

 

[mklos]

If your Mac isn't connected wirelessly to the Airport Base Station then I would get a Airport Wireless card. If you already do then you should be able to connect to each other and also share the internet connection. On the Mac make sure Windows File Sharing is turned on in the Network System Preference.

Also make sure they are on the same subnet. If you go to the System Preferences/Network/ then if your using Airport click on the Airport tab and then see if the subnet is the same as the PC.

To check the subnet on the PC go to Start, Network Connections, Wireless (or whatever its called) and then right click and go to properties and then see if its on the same subnet. (You can also see the Wireless connection in the system tray in Windows).


If you don't have a Wireless card in your mac then you'll probably need to run the base station into an Ethernet hub. You can get a LinkSys 5-Port Ethernet Hub for about $30.

Hope that answers your question! Please post back with any other problems.

 

[mklos]

When everything is setup you should see the PC in the Network Browsing window, or you can connect to it using "Connect to Server". When in Finder, go to Go then to Connect to Server and put in the name of the PC and the folder that you want to connect to. Make sure that it says smb:// in front of where your gonna connect to.

ex. smb://ibmpc/sharedfolder

or you can use the IP address of the PC

ex. smb://192.168.100.2/sharedfolder


I would create a shared folder on the PC to connect to. I don't believe you can just connect to the PC you need to connect to the PC and a shared folder. You can share any folder on the PC including the C drive (Be careful in doing that, especially with wireless). It should prompt you for a username and password. Use the Windows username and password.


On the PC side right click on My computer and then click on Map network drive, put the name or IP address of the Mac and the folder you want to share.

ex. //imac/admin

it should then prompt you for a username and password. Use the Mac username and password.