Hello,

I cannot figure out, for the life of me, why our WinXP machine won't
connect to our Mac.

Mac: Powerbook G4 running OS X 10.4.7, WIndows File Sharing is active
and an account is selected which will use Windows sharing.

PC: Windows XP Home Edition, SP2. A file share is active.

We're both using wireless connections via a D-Link DI-624 router. Both
the Mac and PC are on the same workgroup and have different machine
names. Both are on the same subnet.

The Mac can connect to Windows XP share directories and printers
without a problem. The Windows XP machine can browse to the Mac's web
page when the Personal Web Sharing on the Mac is active. The XP machine
can even ping the Mac's address with no packet losses.

However, when the XP machine tries to connect to the Mac (via Map
Network Drive or from the command line) using \\machine\share, we get
the following error: "The Specified Network Name is No Longer
Available". The Mac's machine name shows up when we do a search for
computers, but gives us that same error when we double click on it.
Furthermore, the printer name does not show up in the printer list,
although the Mac's machine name does.

Any ideas? Any more information needed?

Thanks a lot. This problem is driving me insane. :/

Scott

This is name resolution issue. If you use IP, that will work.

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
  I cannot figure out, for the life of me, why our WinXP machine won't
  connect to our Mac.

  Mac: Powerbook G4 running OS X 10.4.7, WIndows File Sharing is active
  and an account is selected which will use Windows sharing.

  PC: Windows XP Home Edition, SP2. A file share is active.

  We're both using wireless connections via a D-Link DI-624 router. Both
  the Mac and PC are on the same workgroup and have different machine
  names. Both are on the same subnet.

  The Mac can connect to Windows XP share directories and printers
  without a problem. The Windows XP machine can browse to the Mac's web
  page when the Personal Web Sharing on the Mac is active. The XP machine
  can even ping the Mac's address with no packet losses.

  However, when the XP machine tries to connect to the Mac (via Map
  Network Drive or from the command line) using \\machine\share, we get
  the following error: "The Specified Network Name is No Longer
  Available". The Mac's machine name shows up when we do a search for
  computers, but gives us that same error when we double click on it.
  Furthermore, the printer name does not show up in the printer list,
  although the Mac's machine name does.

  Any ideas? Any more information needed?

  Thanks a lot. This problem is driving me insane. :/

  Scott

Robert L [MVP - Networking] wrote:
Thank you for the reply, but I am using the ip address:
\\192.168.0.101\<share> and
still get the error. (ping works fine)

That IP is the IP addy for the mac and it's a static IP, too.

Thank you for the suggestion, tho'.

Scott

I finally figured it out! It had to do with the smb.conf file and a
missing file. Here's what happened (for people with future problems
like this):

o Looked at the log.smbd file (in /var/log/samba) and saw errors about
not being able to convert from CP0. Searched online and found (from
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2490054&#2490054)
that I needed to change 'dos charset = 0' to 'CP850'...
o In Terminal, did a 'sudo pico /etc/smb.conf' and changed the line
"dos charset = 0" to "dos charset = CP850"
o Still didn't work, and found from the log.smbd file that the convert
msg was gone, but was replaced with a "Failed to open
/private/var/db/samba/secrets.tdb" msg.
o I saw that the directory (at the ..../samba level) didn't exist, so,
from Terminal, I used sudo to create the /private/var/db/samba
directory (sudo mkdir /private/var/db/samba), and did a 'sudo touch
secrets.tdb' to create the file, then 'sudo chown root:wheel
secrets.tdb' to assign the correct user/group.

Used 'sharepoints' program to create shares and voila! It works great
now!

To share my printer, I'm using bonjour, which is a free printer/etc.
sharing program from Apple for those with OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and
WinXP/2000/2003 machines
(http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/bonjour/).

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