Help accessing W7 shared drive and W7 connected printer from Macbook Pro / OS X 10.6.6
HELP!! I am losing the will to live and despite the ubiqity of information on the internet it seems no-one knows the answer to this. On my home network I have the following: An old desktop running Windows XP, a new workstation running W7 ultimate 64bit, a laptop running W7 home premium, and a Macbook Pro running OS X vers 10.6.6. I am trying without success to access a shared drive on the W7 workstation. So far as I can see I have enabled everything but it still doesn't work. Some more info: from the W7 laptop I can see and access all the shared drives on both the old XP desktop and the new W7 workstation; from the Mac I can SEE both the XP desktop and the W7 workstation, I can ACCESS the shared drives on the XP desktop but I CANNOT access the shared drives on the W7 workstation (Mac Finder simply reports 'Connection Failed' and connecting manually via smb:// does the same). From this I conclude that (1) I have correctly shared the drives, made the network discoverable, etc etc on the workstation or it could not be accessed from the laptop, (2) I have correctly setup the Mac to be able to access available shared drives on Windows machines, or it would not be able to access and use shared drives on the old XP desktop. It seems therefore this is some kind of basic incompatibility between W7 and Mac. Can anyone help? I am pretty techy, I believe I have tried literally everything, this is SUCH a common thing that surely with two brand-new operating systems setting up the networking should be a simple matter of configuration but it JUST WON'T WORK!!!! Since the Mac is successfully accessing the Windows XP machine, I have concluded this is a W7 problem (not a Mac problem) hence posting here. The next problem is the shared printer, but I'd like to solve the drive first and maybe that will also help me solve the printer... Thanks in advance, Alastair
January 15th, 2011 4:27pm

Hi, After checking this issue, I would like to confirm the following details: 1. Do you use wired connection in your home network? 2. Did this issue occur to both of Windows 7 computers? In this situation, I suggest you to try the following steps to check the result: 1. Try SMB via IP address instead of PC name to see how it works. 2. Disable firewall on each computer to see what happens. 3. Change the Network Security policy in Windows 7 as following: 1) Start Orb>Search box>type: secpol.msc 2) When secpol.msc appears in Results above, right-click it and "run as administrator". 3) Click on "Local Policies" --> "Security Options" 4) Navigate to the policy "Network Security: LAN Manager authentication level" and double-click it to get its Properties. By default Windows Vista sets the policy to "NTVLM2 responses only". Use the drop-down arrow to change this to "LM and NTLM – use NTLMV2 session security if negotiated". Meanwhile, due to the architecture between Windows and OS X 10.6.6 is different, it could be related to the OS X10.6.6 settings, I also suggest you to contact Apple for more help: Apple - Support - Mac OS Note: Microsoft provides third-party contact information to help you find technical support. This contact information may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this third-party contact information. Hope it helps. Alex ZhaoPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.
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January 18th, 2011 5:00am

Hi Thanks for your response and sorry for picking it up so slowly. Still no joy so I'm hoping my answers will help you help me further: - The W7 Home Premium laptop connects via wifi, the desktop workstation plugged directly into the router - On the W7HP laptop I can access the shared drive of the Mac, but not from the W7Ult64 desktop - I have tried SMB connect using IP address, same issue and "Connection Failed" error - I tried disabling firewall on the PC (no firewall on Mac anyway), same issue. - I had already (from a previous posting) updated the security policy as you indicate, but I double checked, it is set as you suggest, same issue. I am 99.9% certain this is not a basic connectivity issue. All machines are on the same network, all seems to be picking up valid IP addresses, and although there seems to be a problem between the Mac and the W7Ult desktop, other point-to-points seem to work. To be fair, I have yet to try getting the W7HP laptop to connect with the Macbook. Couple of other data points which may help the diagnosis: i) I have no trouble at all connecting from this Macbook to the Windows XP machine on the network. This is what makes me think it's probably more likely to be a Mac setting than a W7 setting. Having said that, I have not yet tried to to connect either from the Mac to the W7HP laptop, or indeed from the W7HP laptop to the Mac. ii) I CAN connect FROM the Windows 7 workstation to the Mac. I am able to open files, browse all folders designated as shared, etc. ii) I have also been trying to set up to be able to print from the Macbook to a photo printer connected to the W7 workstation. The workstation is visible as follows: in the Mac option to add a Windows printer, I can see the workgroup (WILF), within that I can browse to the workstation (alastair-ws), and from there I can see the two printers which are set up on the workstation, I can select the one I want, and I can add it. However, once it's added, when I then try to print to it, I get an error (and it doesn't print). It is just the connection FROM the Macbook TO the Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit machine which seems steadfastly unwilling to start working. Help! This is just immensely frustrating. Connection both ways with Windows XP works fine, connection one way with W7ult64bit seems to work OK, but in the other direction nothing - just "Connection Failed" every time. I am of course happy to look at Mac support... the problem is this is most likely a mutual compatibility issue, I am homing in on Microsoft/Windows since the connection from Mac to the Windows environment (generically) works, but something about W7Ult64bit is preventing it from working the same way as XP. Any more ideas? Thank you Alastair Alastair.
March 6th, 2011 11:13am

STOP PRESS One more thing which may help. I just tried with the laptop. For some reason, the W7 Home Premium laptop does NOT appear in the Mac "Finder" (I guess you know what this is), so you cannot just browse to it - unlike the XP machine. However I WAS able to connect to it using "Connect to Server" and "SMB" whatever that is - I had to put in the name of the laptop, after which I was prompted for my user name and password for the laptop. It failed initially (I was not using a password on the laptop, but a null entry in the connect form on the Mac failed... this was corrected by adding a password on the Windows laptop and then using the password!!). Once connected, I was able to fully browse all the shared files. SO Between the Macbook Pro and XP, no problem. Between the Mac and the W7 Home Premium laptop, a bit clunky to get connected (and no idea yet if I would have to repeat all of that every time or if it now 'knows' and will find the laptop). From the W7Ult64bit workstation to the Mac, I can open and look at files. BUT the one I need - to be able to access the W7Ult64bit machine FROM the Mac to (a) use its disk capacity for backup, (b) access its printers as shared printers... this remains elusive. Any help much appreciated. Thanks Alastair.
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March 6th, 2011 11:27am

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