Windows network problems.

[CTJoyce]

Alright so here is the situation. I have 3 windows PCs all running Vista Ultimate x32, and my iBook G4 running 10.5.5 I have a Canon MP610 attached to one of my PCs that we share over the network.

Now here is the issue I am having. From my mac, I can connect to my PCs shared folder via Command+K then doing SMB://192.168.1.5 etc. File transfer and everything is great, in fact as I type this I am transferring 30GB worth of music from my desktop to my newly reformatted iBook. My problem occurs when I click on the network icon in my finder. Nothing appears. I did some research and found that unlike tiger which just shows you all available PC networks Leopard has the WINS setting in Network > Advanced. So I set my name in there, and set the workgroup to MSHOME. When I click OK and then Apply it does save the workgroup name and everything, but when I go into finder it doesn't show anything still under networking.

Basically I am fine with using SMB to connect to my Windows machines, but I would really like to get my mac connected to the network to access my shared printer.

Cheers
Cameron

 

[macrem]

Hopefully someone else will have a direct answer to your question...

I remember having similar issues and ended up getting a print server for the printer and making an old pc into the network file server, which could be mounted securely using SSH (& sshfs) from Macs and via Samba from PCs.

Sorry I know this is not the exact answer you were looking for but just an idea that has some advantages over the solution you're looking for. If you have a recent printer, AFAIK many already have an ethernet connector, if so you can network it directly. Then there does not need to be a computer turned on to print from another computer. Otherwise there are cheap mini print servers that attach to the printer with an ethernet adapter.

 

[CTJoyce]

I was kinda holding out on the print server as a last resort. Unfortunately when I purchased my printer I was looking for performance per dollar, and networking options were last on my mind because I knew that I could just do a network shared device via Windows (really the only computers that absolutely need to print).

As far as the file sharing goes, I have a file server at home that also doubles as a server for my Acronis backup. I access it as a network mapped drive on my PCs and SMB to it when on the mac. That all works fine, but its just getting the printer to work.

Cheers
Cameron

 

[macrem]

Have you tried to set up the printer via CUPS?

 

[misterredman]

I did some research and found that unlike tiger which just shows you all available PC networks Leopard has the WINS setting in Network > Advanced. So I set my name in there, and set the workgroup to MSHOME. When I click OK and then Apply it does save the workgroup name and everything, but when I go into finder it doesn't show anything still under networking.

I had a similar problem and I don't know if it was corrected with the updates. What I had to do was to create a new "Network location" and set the workgroup there (under WINS). Somehow the automatic wasn't saving the setting.

 

[CTJoyce]

Figured it out its a DNS problem because my apartment complex has the worst network in the world.

Cheers
Cameron