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Preciousss · Sep 9, 2004, 02:55 PM

I'm about to start working in an organization that used Windows NT Server. Does anybody have any experience/knowledge of 10.3.5 and whether or not it plays well (or even at all) in this environment?

I'd hate to abandon my Mac for work.

Appleman · Sep 9, 2004, 04:16 PM

Originally posted by Preciousss:
I'd hate to abandon my Mac for work.

Yes, I can imagine that!

Darth_Ellis · Sep 10, 2004, 11:04 AM

Originally posted by Preciousss:
I'm about to start working in an organization that used Windows NT Server. Does anybody have any experience/knowledge of 10.3.5 and whether or not it plays well (or even at all) in this environment?

I'd hate to abandon my Mac for work.

My office has both a Windows NT server and a Red Hat Linux server. OS X works fine with Windows NT so long as they have appletalk active on the NT server (services for macintosh).

Linux was more of a challenge, but it works fine as well.

Darth E.

SMacTech · Sep 10, 2004, 03:28 PM

I am assuming you mean Windows NT 4? If so, I recommend that you get a 3rd party AFP server, such as ExtremeZ-IP from Group Logic.

Windows NT's SFM [services for macintosh] absolutely sucks in comparison. I have used Macs since NT 3.0 and bagged on SFM in NT 3.5. It is buggy, had file limitations in early implementations [ 65535 files per volume], was slow to rebuild the Indexes of Mac files.

We would see folders disappear with SFM, files in the wrong folder, orphaned files and general BAD stuff.

When our 3rd party AFP server [MacServerIP] started choking on OS X clients, we temporarily reverted to SFM in Windows 2k, only to have several problems. I purchased ExtremeZ-IP and haven't had ANY problems.

It isn't cheap, but neither is wasting 40 mac users time and the frustration it caused.

Preciousss · 02:42 PM

Originally posted by Darth_Ellis:
My office has both a Windows NT server and a Red Hat Linux server. OS X works fine with Windows NT so long as they have appletalk active on the NT server (services for macintosh).

Linux was more of a challenge, but it works fine as well.

Darth E.

Coolness. I'm here for my first day of work and have more questions for you smart people. Here's the deal:

- They installed Services for Macintosh (SFM).

- I walk in with my PowerBook and am able to see the server and drill down to their directory structure to mountable volumes. Looks like I can even connect to them (more on why I didn't just yet below).

- Their IT person says that trying to access the Properties for SFM hourglasses and then goes nowhere. Also, their Exchange server crashed after installing SFM. Until he gets this fixed, he asked me not to try and access my account on the network. Oh! Almost forgot, they only have 192 MB of memory on the server (running NT 4 btw).

- Just spoke with him again and he went ahead and uninstalled SFM and Exchange is back up again.

Could this all be a memory problem? Both of us are doing research on our ends and I'm starting out with you all. Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks again.

UPDATE!!!

Hee-hee, I think I'm well on my way to making some Mac converts here. So, I went to the IT guy's office with my Mac to check up on Exchange access for Mail. He confirmed that he had uninstalled SFM. But, get this, I hooked up to ethernet and was still able to access the server! I logged into the network and was able to open up a document. How is this possible? (Now all I need to worry about is leaving .DS files all over the server.)

Now onto thet software forums to find out about Exchange server and Mail.

Preciousss · Sep 14, 2004, 01:57 PM

Originally posted by SMacTech:
I am assuming you mean Windows NT 4? If so, I recommend that you get a 3rd party AFP server, such as ExtremeZ-IP from Group Logic.

Windows NT's SFM [services for macintosh] absolutely sucks in comparison. I have used Macs since NT 3.0 and bagged on SFM in NT 3.5. It is buggy, had file limitations in early implementations [ 65535 files per volume], was slow to rebuild the Indexes of Mac files.

We would see folders disappear with SFM, files in the wrong folder, orphaned files and general BAD stuff.

When our 3rd party AFP server [MacServerIP] started choking on OS X clients, we temporarily reverted to SFM in Windows 2k, only to have several problems. I purchased ExtremeZ-IP and haven't had ANY problems.

It isn't cheap, but neither is wasting 40 mac users time and the frustration it caused.

Just saw this reply. I just wanted to clarify about the "general BAD stuff" you referred to above. Do you mean disappearing folders etc. on the Mac users end, or for everyone accessing the server? And were they deleted or just missing?

Ack! There's already some joking around that my Mac is messing up everything for everyone (Exchange going down this morning). I'd hate for more serious stuff to stem from having her here.

SMacTech · Sep 14, 2004, 02:41 PM

The files and folders were problems for Mac users, as SFM maintains its own index of files on the server. This index would get out of sync with the real files. No files were deleted!

This had no effect on the PC users or other services running. However, a file server and exchange server on the same box? That is asking for trouble. A 192MB on an exchange server ? NO offense, but someone doesn't know what they are doing.