38. Allow Windows Users to Share Your Files  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 36 Allow Others to Share Your Files 37 Share Files from a Windows PC
Setting up your Mac OS X machine to allow Windows users to access it is very similar to configuring it for Mac-based access. The only difference is that because Windows file sharing requires you to authenticate with a real user account and not with Guest access, each Windows user who wants to access your Mac must have a user account on your Mac. See 118 Add a New User for how to add a new user on your Mac. The steps in this task describe a network environment with a fairly simple Windows network structure. Some environments, such as what might be in place at a large company, can introduce complexities that prevent these basic procedures from working. To deal with complex Windows networking problems, consider a book dedicated to the topic such as Sams Teach Yourself Windows Networking in 24 Hours (Sams Publishing).  TIP By default, your Mac is a member of the workgroup called WORKGROUP . You may wish to change this name, so you can browse an existing workgroup of a different name , or so others can connect to your Mac using an existing domain. To do this, open the Directory Access application, found in the Utilities folder inside Applications . Authenticate as an administrator by clicking the lock icon at the bottom. Then double-click SMB , and type the desired workgroup or domain name in the sheet that appears. You can specify a WINS server as well, if necessary. Click OK , and then quit Directory Access .
| 1. | Open Sharing Preferences
Open the System Preferences from the Apple menu. Click the Sharing icon to open the Sharing Preferences . Click the Services tab if it's not already selected.
| | 2. | Enable Windows Sharing Select the Windows Sharing option in the Select a service to change its settings box and click the Start button or the corresponding check box in the On column to start up Windows Sharing. 38. Allow Windows Users to Share Your Files  If your Mac has been running Mac OS X since version 10.0 or 10.1, you might have difficulty connecting to it from a Windows machine; this is because Windows Sharing requires a separate encrypted password database to be stored on your Mac, and that database did not exist in earlier versions of Mac OS X. If your user accounts were created before that password database existed, Windows users won't be able to connect to your Mac using those accounts. To solve this problem, open the Accounts Preferences and change each user's password. You can change each password to the same string as the current password, if you want. When you do this, Mac OS X creates the necessary entry in the Windows File Sharing password database, enabling Windows users to connect properly. NOTE If your Mac started life with Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) or later, or if your user accounts were all created using these recent versions, Windows users should be able to access your Mac without difficulty. | | 3. | Enable Accounts for Windows Sharing
When you enable Windows Sharing, Mac OS X notifies you that in order to share files with Windows computers, your Mac's account passwords must be stored in a less secure manner than usual. You have to individually enable each account you wish to make visible to Windows computers. Click Enable Accounts to see the list of users.
Enable users by clicking the On check box next to their names . As you enable each user, you are prompted to enter the user's password.
Click Done when you're finished enabling users.
| | 4. | Browse the Network Under Windows On a Windows machine on the same network as your Mac, open the My Network Places window; navigate to Entire Network , then Microsoft Windows Network . Open the workgroup called Workgroup . You should then see the hostnames for your Mac and any other Samba-based machines on your network. NOTE Your Mac will appear in the Windows network by its hostname as determined by a reverse network lookup (in this example, the hostname is Ip52 ). Make sure that the proper hostname is associated with your machine's IP address in order for it to show up correctly in the listing! If it is not, depending on the version of Windows you're using, you might see only a string representing the version of Samba your Mac is using (for instance, "Samba" followed by a version number). Contact your network administrator for assistance if this happens. | | 5. | Enter User Information
Double-click the entry representing your Mac. A dialog box pops up, prompting you for a username and password. Depending on the version of Windows, this dialog box may report an Incorrect password or unknown username error; this is normal. Enter the requested information, matching the account information on the Mac, and click OK .
Windows 2000 and later allow you to specify both a username and a password when connecting to a remote server. However, the Windows 95/98 series allows you to enter only a password; the username is derived from your Windows profile name. If you're using one of these older versions of Windows, you must be using a Windows profile with the same name as the short name of the account you're connecting to on the Mac. Consult your network administrator for assistance in finding out or changing your Windows profile name.
If one is present (not all versions of Windows have one), click the Remember my password check box to save the password for future connections.
| | 6. | Browse the Remote Files
After authenticating successfully, the available shares on the Mac appear in the window; these include the Home folder for the account you've authenticated for, the Mac's built-in modem, and any connected printers. You can navigate these items, create shortcuts to them, and access them as though they were local or served from another Windows machine.
After you have authenticated once, you won't have to do so again for your current Windows session. However, if you log out or reboot the Windows machine, you must authenticate again.
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