Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Connect a Mac to a PC on a Local Network
Macs running OS X are more compatible with PCs than ever. There is no need to use PC-Mac LAN, and you can even print to Windows printers through your PC. This focuses on getting a Mac to connect to your PC not the other way around.
This article will help you to connect a Mac to a PC on a Local Network.
Instructions
- Start up your Mac and PC. Make sure they are both connected to the network before attempting to access the PC's files.
- On the PC, go to Control Panel>System. Check the name of the workgroup on the network. If you are having trouble, the default for Windows XP is MSHOME and for Vista is WORKGROUP.
- On your Mac, open up the Directory Access application in Utilities. You might need to click the lock in the lower left-hand corner in order to make changes. Double-click on SMB/CIFS, and change the Workgroup name to the same name as the workgroup on Windows XP.
- In Finder, click on Go>Network. Locate the name of your Windows PC. Login using your Windows login.