[rytc]

Hi all,
What are people's experiences with software that allows a Windows server to fully support the Mac i.e. allowing files that contain slashes and so forth i.e. characters that windows doesn't allow to be stored on the server.


Cheers Ry

[rytc]

One example of a product I am talking about is ExtremeZ-IP

[larkost]

I don't think you understand ExtremeZ-IP. It does not allow anything that SMB access does not allow. Its advantages are over Services for Macintosh on Windows Server (an old product that no-one likes). No product is ever going to be able to make Windows Serves use characters that they don't take. Now there are some workarounds by using unicode, but SMB does this just as well.

Simple answer: if you are using Widows Fileservers, use SMB.

[rytc]

Interesting, it's just that from reading several things about ExtremeZ-IP it appeared that it did do this.

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-1538134.php

Quote: "Thanks Jim, William...
We do have a lot of ’creatively’ named files that have been an issue
in the past. Seems that SMB does ’not’ support those (and that may’ve
been GOOD
before they were created) and so we need the function of ’weird’ file
name support (/$#*\ and etc) from ExtremeZ-IP. In addition, and I’m
still checking, the PASSWORD support thru our NT based (soon to be all
Win2003Server) is only eight letters... I’m checking to see if the
ExtremeZ-IP supports the full 14 that NT currently allows."

Basically, IT have installed a windows server and we have many gigabytes of data that are on and will continued to be used on OS X machines, when attempting to copy these onto the server using SMB we get errors in regards to the filenames being unacceptable.

Cheers Ry

[rytc]

I am going to have to point out that you are incorrect on this point, ExtremeZ-IP does allow the use of these filenames on Windows servers see here
http://www.grouplogic.com/products/e...ver40vsSMB.pdf

Filenames expected by Mac users are valid including
characters (/, \, ;,*, ?, etc.)(3)


(3) File names that contain characters which are illegal on Windows cannot be used by
Mac OS X clients using SMB, including common characters like “/”, “\”, and “*”. Existing
Macintosh files with these characters cannot be copied to the server, or, if they are already
on the server, they appear with small boxes instead of the characters themselves. This is a
major step back for Macintosh users, removing a feature the Macintosh has provided since
1984.

[T. Reid Lewis]

Hi,

Speaking on behalf of the ExtremeZ-IP developer, I can tell you that ExtremeZ-IP DOES ALLOW these characters on Windows.

The chart lists those features that _don't_ work with SMB but _do_ work with ExtremeZ-IP. Sorry for the confusion.

To reiterate, ExtremeZ-IP File Server DOES ALLOW filenames to include the characters (/, \, ;,*, ?, etc.)

For a list of other features that ExtremeZ-IP File Server offers over the SMB client, check out this page: http://www.grouplogic.com/products/e...BSolutions.cfm

- Reid