To start, I'm pretty PC illiterate.

Our office is mostly PC, but our small group of Mac users have a MacPro set up as a minor server/mountable file sharing location. It's not running Apple's server software, it's just running OS 10.5.8 and sharing one of its hard drives.

While there's absolutely no issue for the Mac users getting to this "server" with ease, a few of the PC folks would now like to get access to the files on this MacPro also.

Can they PC users reach this MacPro as it is now configured?
If so, what would they need to do to get to it?
If not, what would be needed so that they could?


TIA

I don't remember exactly how to enable it, but the Mac can be set up as an VNC server. Then any VNC client, Mac or Windows would be able to access it.

Edit:
Here you go



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/10/2011 03:30PM by MGS_forgot_password.

VNC is for screen sharing, not file access. You need to enable Windows file sharing (aka SAMBA). I believe it is under the Sharing preference panel in the settings screen.

Apparently, in Lion, Apple dropped SAMBA because of changes that the SAMBA group made to the license they required. They changed it from GPL v2 to GPL v3 and that doesn't jive with many commercial business users. Instead, Apple used their own SMB networking protocol.

[reviews.cnet.com]

---

**************************************
MacResource User Map: [www.zeemaps.com]#

Do these PC folks have accounts set up on the Mac file server? If not, set up an account(s) for them to use, and then within Windows, just have them use the IP address of the server:

Have them do a Windows Key + R (the Run command) and then just use:
[insert actual IP address)

\\192.168.0.1

The logon dialog box will open up for authentication (or not, depending on public shares, etc.) and have them use the account you set up for them. They will then see the shares and should be able to click on the one(s) they have access too.

---