Networking OSX and Win 7

Hello

I am in the process of trying to get my Windows 7 (professional) PC and Mac 10.6.8 to share files between each other at gigabit ethernet speeds.

The setup is as follows. Though to begin with I used a gigabit switch TP-Link SG1005D, I was having some issues getting them to talk to each other properly and so I am using a netgear router but still have the same issue.

So on both machines, they have wireless network cards that connect to an internet router in another room. My goal is to get these 2 machines connected together in order to share large video files between them.

On the windows machine I have set the ethernet network card to have an ip address of 192.168.1.150, subnet 255.255.255.0. I have enabled sharing in the network sharing properties.

On the Mac I have set the file sharing on with SMB. For the ethernet network card, I have set 192.168.1.110.

From the windows machine, if I go to My Computer -> Network in the left column, I do see the Mac machine and when double clicked on, can see the 'Public Drop Box' folder. I am able to drop files from windows into it and sure enough, when I go to the mac, it is in the drop box.

However.... if I want to access folders on Windows 7 from the mac but clicking on go->Connect to server and typing in smb://192.168.1.150, it will not connect - it just says that the IP address is wrong. Yet if I enter in smb://computername/Users - I do get a connection to the Windows 7 machine. But this is not from PC-Ethernet Card to Mac-Ethernet Card, it appears to be from PC-Wireless to Mac-Wireless which defeats the purpose really as the file transfer is very slow. The whole point of connecting via the gigabit ethernet cards is to achieve gigabit ethernet transfer rates!

So at the moment, transferring from PC to MAC uses the ethernet cards but MAC to PC only works through wireless!!

Any help you can offer, I would be very grateful! I know what the problem is, I just don't know how to fix it.

Is networking PC and MAC really this difficult??

Thanks
Si

First things first: you cannot have both the wireless and the wired running at the same time. (Yes, it's technically possible, but not feasible for what you're doing.) Connect the two through the switch and turn off wireless on both (they may do it automatically when they detect a connection, they may not, since at present they can't get out to the internet, right?) Ok, so if you want them to get out to the internet through wired, great, just run a ethernet line from the router to the switch and you'll be good to go. Check IP addresses to make sure they are what you expect and you've made a simple wired home network.

If you don't want/need them to connect to the router for Internet, or can't get a cable over there for whatever reason, you can still connect them via the switch, just make sure you turn wireless off then you will have to manually give each of them an IP address. Truth be told, you don't need the switch at all at this point, you can connect the two directly to each other and use one less cable.

That's the networking (Layers 1-3 if you know what that means) part of it. Now, for Layers 4 -7, the protocols. It might be necessary for you to install AppleTalk onto your ethernet interface. It should be pretty simple, and google can help with instructions.

First off AdamPI is right drop the wireless. Two network interfaces are only going to confuse the systems as to which interface to use unless they are on separate segments. Second turn off the firewall on the Windows box until you have it working (yeah I said turn it off). You can also add the name entry to the hosts file but that really shouldn't be needed as IP addresses should always work.

If you can't or don't want to disable the firewall then install nmap on the Mac and port scan the Windows box on the wired address. This will let you know if it's a firewall issue or something else pretty quick. You should see (at the minimum) ports 139 and 445 open.

Post back once you turn off the firewall and try from the Mac to the Windows box. The easiest way to shoot network stuff is to drop your security to verify it works and then build it back step by step. Just keep the two systems on a private LAN and you should be fine while figuring this out.

I run a network with Mac and Windows (140 clients total) and they all play nice once you get them configured correctly.