Chapter 22 -- Using Macintosh Services

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Chapter 22

Despite continual reports of its demise, the Apple Macintosh remains popular in many environments, especially ones where users are doing high-end graphics, page layout, Web design, or video production. However, the Macintosh has never caught on as a file server, especially given the attractive price/performance ratio of Intel-based servers running Microsoft Windows NT and Microsoft Windows 2000.

Anticipating that Windows NT and Windows 2000 would be widely adopted for department and workgroup servers, Microsoft included in them two services that allow Macintosh users to share files and printers with Windows, OS/2, and even MS-DOS users. The File Server for Macintosh (FSM) service handles the publishing of shared files, and the Print Server for Macintosh (PSM) service allows Macintosh and Windows users to share each others' printers. In addition, Windows 2000 includes an implementation of the AppleTalk network protocol. The mechanism these services use is simple: you share folders and files and then enable Macintosh file sharing on the share. Windows clients can use the share normally, while Macintosh clients use Apple's file-sharing software to connect to the Windows 2000 Server and get the files.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to install, configure, and administer both FSM and PSM. Along the way, you'll gain a basic understanding of Macintosh networking, as well as some of the implications of sharing files among users on different platforms.