Sharing Mac and Windows Files on a LAN

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The Basics

I have one Windows 2000 Dell PC computer and at least one, sometimes two Mac laptops on a home LAN. There are two user accounts on the PC and I've enabled sharing for each user's "My Documents" folder, giving each a short share name with no spaces. Then I connect to the appropriate share from the Mac.

By the way, I set up a shared folder on the Dell PC, rather than the Mac, because it's a desktop/tower computer that doesn't leave the home office, while the Mac is a laptop. I prefer to keep file sharing disabled on my laptop. If you use a cable modem and do not have firewall software or a router working as a firewall, you should reconsider enabling sharing. (See Broadband Internet Security Basics article.)

Set Up a Windows Share

Here are the steps taken to share one user's My Documents folder over the LAN.

Right-click the folder and select Properties from the menu. Click the Share This Folder radio button and give it a short share name, then click the Permissions button. (Screenshot)
The default permissions (Screenshot) are set to give Everyone full control. Select and Remove Everyone and Add the users you desire and set the read/write permissions (Screenshot). Click Apply and OK.

Open a Windows Share File From the Mac:

Here are the steps for connecting to my Dell from my MacOS X 10.2 Powerbook (Be patient. See the Apple Knowledgebase article for details, if needed):

In the Finder, in the Go menu, select Connect to Server and wait until all the items have appeared in the list and the disk stops spinning. This took longer than expected. (Screenshot)
Select your PC from the list, or enter the URL using the SAMBA syntax (smb://ServerName/ShareName/) for a Windows share, or AFP syntax for a Mac share, and connect. (Screenshot)
Choose your Windows share. (Screenshot)
The local hard disk's volume, your iDisk on Mac.Com and a remote Mac or Windows share all have different desktop icons. (Screenshot)
You can select a file icon and choose Get Info from the File menu to check permissions, if you like. (The Panther Screenshot of the info window differs a bit from the Jaguar Screenshot)

Note, I found when I opened a folder on the PC volume, the volume icon might disappear from the desktop and then after several seconds reappear with its window. Other times, it reacted like the local volumes in opening files promptly. Again, be patient.

Set Up Mac Sharing

You can share your Mac with Windows computers through SAMBA, included in MacOS X. Users connecting to Windows File Sharing must have user accounts on the Mac OS X computer that is sharing. There is no guest access.

You activate Windows file sharing through System Preferences: Internet & Network: Sharing and select Windows File Sharing. (Screenshot) Note the address at the bottom of the screen that Windows users will need to log in to your computer.
In System Preferences: System: Accounts edit the desired user and check the box to Allow user to login from Windows. (Screenshot)

Open a Mac Share from the PC

On Windows, you create a network place and then you can connect to the remote Mac and login.

Open My Network Places and double-click Add a Network Place. (Screenshot)
Use the wizard to create a connection to a shared folder using the address from the Sharing control panel. Enter the Mac computer name (or IP address), prefaced by two backslashes, follow it with a backslash and the short user name. (Screenshot)
You can give it a name or accept the default on the next screen. (Screenshot)
Select the Mac share you want from the Network Places window. (Screenshot) You can double-click to open the folder.

Other Resources

Mac to PC File Sharing: This fellow has a number of articles, with illustrative screen shots, on sharing files Mac to PC or PC to Mac. There are even Q&A forums.
MacWindows Web site: Lots of resources, articles and how-tos.
DAVE from Thursby Software: Software for connecting to Windows shares
Sharity from Objective Development: Connects You to Windows File Servers as a client
VirtualPC from Microsoft: If you have a fast enough computer, you can run an emulated Windows environment in an application window, share file between your Mac side and Windows, and connect to other Windows computers.

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