Connecting to PC from Mac ... (with a twist)

[muddyfox470]

Ok People,

Now we have full wireless around the house (which i am pretty pleased with) i want to be able to let my mac access the pc's within the network.

I have only found methods of connecting to PC's from the mac by entering in the IP address of that PC, and it connects flawlessly. i.e. smb//192.87.0.4

However i really would find it easiest if i could access them by their computer names, i.e. DOWNSTAIRS, MUDDY etc. on xp and win2k this works flawlessly and despit changing ip addresses it works.

However with the mac if the ip address changes i need to enter in a new one to connect to it which gets rather annoying, or is that all i can do? Do i just have to assign each PC a static IP address so it doesnt keep moving about etc (I would rather not do this latter option, but if there is no other work around i guess i will have to go with it!)

Thanks in Anticipation

Ian

[BroadbandPlacey]

yeah you just assign each computer with an IP, its very easy to do and also helps you with software firewalls etc (e.g. you just allow everything from ip 192.168.0.100)

i assume your connecting wirelessly to a wireless router?

if so they'll be an option in there somewhere to allow you to assign network IP's - on my netgear its a 2 second job

[muddyfox470]

yeah i know i can do it, i was just wondering whether i could do it without having to assign numbers, for portability etc.

no worries.

thanks

ian

[uchiha_itachi]

Hi muddyfox, I think I have a solution to this problem.

I have a pretty much similar setup, 2 windows boxes, an imac and powerbook on the wireless. I connect to the pcs the same way you do, but on the network connect window in osx, instead of putting the ip address of the computer you want to connect to, put their computer name. so you have smb://muddy or whatever your windows machines are called. I find when trying to access those computers all you have to do is press apple+k while in finder, and chosse the computer you want to connect to, (more easily recognisable due to the computer name being used) and just hit the connect button. Also if you want to avoid typing in the password each time, just tick the add to keychain box and it should connect flawlessly.

Any problems, let me know, been doing this for about 3 years now, never had any problems, regardless of the ip address change of the windows boxes.

[muddyfox470]

hi uchiha_itachi, cheers for your response.

thats the problem despite having names assigned to the pcs, such as downstairs and ianspc, the mac cannot connect to them via smb://ianspc or whatever. it can connect if i put in the ip address but not its name. however the windows pcs (2k and xp) can communicate freely using this method and there are no problems.

on my 2k box (the one i want to majorly connect to) it doesnt have a firewall and i still cannot connect to it.

very bizarre indeed. i have enable windows sharing and the other sharing thing in the options to no avail. the pcs can connect to the mac, but only if i know the ip address of the mac. i assigned its name macmini.local but i can't use that so i just use the ip address.

the problem with fixed ips is that sometimes i get clashes if someone comes around and uses the wifi, i.e. they bring their lappy. anything you can suggest before i go the fixed ip address route?

cheers

ian

[Jonny M]

What workgroup have you entered for the SMB sharing?

[atrull]

has your mac joined the workgroup ?

otherwise, setup an internal dns zone and/or assign a static address to the mac on your dhcp server.