[Ruahrc]

Just bought a new Powerbook and I am trying to connect to my XP Pro PC to grab some files off of it. The Powerbook has OS X 10.3 Panther.

Since my PC has a USB Wireless 802.11B adapter I figured an Ad-hoc network is the easiest way to connect the two (There is no router where I am at, so Ad-hoc is the only wireless option available).

So far I am having a lot of trouble connecting the two together. I have gotten it to work sometimes but it is seemingly random and most likely luck in some strange setting. I'm not sure what the problem is- I can create an Ad-hoc on either the PC or the Mac and connect the other computer to that network just fine. The problem is being able to see each other. I cannot "ping" the other computer in either direction (PC>Mac or Mac>PC).

The few times I have gotten it to work I have been able to ping the other computer. If I can ping it I can access the shares, otherwise I can't. I'm not sure what the problem is because I can connect to the Ad-hoc network just fine. One thing I have noticed is that the few times I have gotten it to work I had to manually assign IP addresses to both computers. So the PC got 192.168.0.1 and the Mac got 192.168.0.2. Both had subnet masks of 255.255.255.0. If I try to have auto-assigned IP's from DHCP then it won't work (the PC auto-assigns itself 169.254.155.127 and the Mac assigns itself 169.254.173.85).

Any ideas? I did at one point mess around with the services in XP to free up some memory and suspected that I may have messed something up (although not likely since I have been able to grab shared stuff from another XP PC just fine? They were connected wirelessly via a router, though, so that may be different?). But I went back to Black Viper's service page and checked everything again and it seemed correct. Still won't connect. The other oddity is that setting up an Ad-hoc on the XP PC will usually show a connection speed of only 2.0Mbps, even though the two computers are in the same room, right next to each other? Could it be that since the Powerbook's connection is 54Mb it interferes with the 11Mb USB adapter on the PC?

Any input you have would be great, thanks!

Ruahrc

[milhous]

do you have sharing services enabled on both computers? in OS X, enable windows file sharing in 'sharing' (system preferences), while enabling file sharing in windows by using the 'sharing and security' contextual menu option for a folder or user folder. and yes, you need to manually set ip addresses on both computers, preferrably keeping octets 1-3 the same while making the 4th octet different by one. also keep the subnet mask the same, but do NOT set a gateway.

[Ruahrc]

Yeah windows sharing and personal file sharing is enabled on the Mac, and there are shared folders on the Windows PC (What else do I need to enable there?).

And is the manual IP required to get sharing to work? What about if the computers are both connected to a wireless router (which they will be eventually), would I still need to manually assign IP addresses there?

Ruahrc

[teknologika]

To solve this problem you should start at the "lowest" level and then work upwards. If you can connect the computers via a cable I would suggest starting there, and then if that works fine, it is definitely a wireless related issue. You mentioned that you can't ping successfully and that seems to indicate that you are having trouble with either TCP/IP, or ethernet level connectivity.

I would start by looking at your Airport signal strength meter, and the XP wireless control panel and confirm that the computers are indeed connecting.

If they are connecting OK then check in the network control panel to check that there are no red or yellow "lights".

I had a problem with the network at my work where I could connect to the Wireless LAN but I would not get an IP address assigned.

in regards to the auto assigned IPs, if you check the subnet mask, it is probably 255.255.0.0 which means that they should find each other no problem even with both the last two octets of the address being different.

In regards to the gateway address when you hard coded the addresses in the 192 range, it shouldn't matter if the addresses are both in the same subnet, as they won't need to communicate via the gateway anyway.

Hope this helps.

[Ruahrc]

I forgot to mention that I have connected the two computers using a Firewire400 cable once, but it was as hit-and-miss as the wireless connection was. I could get IP's for each computer but cannot ping each other, even when on the cable.

I will need to check again about the subnet mask, I thought they were the same at 255.255.255.0 but maybe one of them was 255.255.0.0. What does the subnet mask do, and how does it relate to the IP address? And why does an IP in the 192 range not require the subnet mask? BTW, whenever I manually assign IP addresses to the computers I always use 192.168.0.X.

Ruahrc

[mrcorwin]

Try giving each of the computers an address in the same range. 192.161.0.10 and 192.161.0.11 That way they will all default to the same gateway/router even though you do not have one. Also make sure they have the correct subnet mask.
-Mr. Corwin