Any problems w/ adding Mac to PC HomeNet?

[tape]

I currently have a Home wireless Network. Printer is directly attached to router. Laptops talk to each other via my HomeGroup. I plan to add a Mac to my network. Will there be a prob. seeing my linksys router, printer & other computers? Can I connect to my PC HomeGroup?

[K A Hall]

Yes...I mean, no there will not be any problems. There are even a few videos on you tube that show you how....such as this one. File sharing between Mac and PC / connect Mac to Windows 7 homegroup. (part 1) - YouTube

[strollin]

I don't believe the Mac will be able to access the Homegroup which is a Win 7 only thing. You will need to create a Workgroup (which can exist alongside your Homegroup) in order for the Mac to see the computers on the Windows network. Machines running XP can't even access a Homegroup (don't confuse the Win 7 Homegroup with a Workgroup named HOMEGROUP) because it is exclusive to Win 7.

In the video that KAHALL linked to, if you look closely at the screen at about 4:02 where he is telling you to determine the name of the Dell computer, you will see that he has a Workgroup named WORKGROUP setup. Regardless of what he thinks he is telling you, he is actually accessing the Workgroup, not the Win 7 Homegroup which is why he is telling you that the Homegroup PW is not needed. This is probably why in the comments, his procedure works for some people and not others.

http://www.strollin.net/wrkgrp.png

In addition, most security experts suggest deleting the Guest account which he is using. In addition, he is turning off password requirements. I prefer requiring a userid/pw in order to access a share on my network.

When I had my Mac, one thing I was impressed with was that when I attached it to my Windows network Workgroup, the Mac automatically saw all the Windows shares on the network and I did not need to do the procedure shown in the video to connect to the Win server via Samba.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Originally Posted by strollin When I had my Mac, one thing I was impressed with was that when I attached it to my Windows network Workgroup, the Mac automatically saw all the Windows shares on the network and I did not need to do the procedure shown in the video to connect to the Win server via Samba.

Correct, all you need is the IP address of the machines. No workgroups need to be set up on the Mac side.

The problem might lie in getting the Windows 7 machines to see the Mac.