[JazzCatDRP]

Hey all,
first off, I did a search, and found a gadzillion topics, but nothing helped. My friend is a new switcher (thanks to yours truly) and is trying to hook up her new MacBook to her PC. According to Apple, you can just hook an ethernet cable from one to the other, set up sharing and boom, it's good. We do that, and when we access the network from her Mac, there's an alias to her computer, but when we click it, it says the original item can't be found. We've tried everything it seems. Is there any reason why it's acting this way?

[ghporter]

The process you describe-just connecting the two computers with an ethernet cable-is incomplete. If you have a router, that's a different matter, but without one, you must also tell each computer HOW to connect. Go into the Network Preferences and set an IP address for the MacBook's built in ethernet connection (try 192.168.1.2). Then go into the PC's network card properties and set an IP address for it (try 192.168.1.3). Give both of them a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 (which tells them to connect to anything that matches the first three groups of numbers. NOW you should be able to connect and do file sharing.

It is MUCH easier (and typically about $20-$30 well spent) to do this using a home router because by default all computers are set up to get their network connection data automatically, and by default all home routers are set up to provide this data. It's "plug and play" to the extreme.

[JazzCatDRP]

Thanks for the help...we actually did try the router, and that's when we got her computer to show up in the Network pane of her MacBook. But when we double click on her computer, it says "the alias cannot be opened because the original cannot be found." Very bizarre. Even upon a restart of both computers, it'll show the Alias, but won't open it.

[cms]

Going with the router as Glenn suggests, try connecting directly to the PC from the MacBook via the PC's network IP address. You will find this in the PC's network info (right-click on network status icon->status->->support->IP Address -- typically 192.168.x.x. Then, go to your Mac, ensure you have Windows Sharing enabled in your Sharing Preferences, and make sure you're in the same workgroup/domain as the PC, and click on Go in the Finder. Select "Connect to Server", and a little box will come up. Enter the PC's IP addres and hit connect. You will get a box come up with the SMB/CFIS share info. and you just plug in your PC username and password to gain access to any shared folders on that machine. If you want to test this without sharing all your docs, it will connect happily to your PC's default Shared Folder, and you can drag stuff in there that you want to share with the Apple. It's really very easy, and with the router should work like a charm.

[n8236]

I'm a recent switcher as well and it can be tricky w/ lots of blockades due to different system configurations. But i've fond a convenient way to transfer large loads of data quickly between my pc and mac.

Tool(s) Needed:
Crossover cable

Instructions:
Disable wireless on mac laptop
Connect the crossover cable between mac and pc
Share a folder/files w/ whatever permissions u want from the pc (read/write)
Go to network on mac and acess the shared folders/files

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I've noticed if you don't disable the airport on mac, the crossover connection won't take priority and take ages. As an alternative, you can just plug the laptop to the router and transfer that way. But wireless is typically a lot slower one way or another. I transferred 25+ gbs in about 20 mins using my crossover.