Hi again,
Ok, so upgrading to 10.2 to get the CIFS Server is out of the question, since I can't free upgrade from 10.1. Right?
So I am stuck with 10.1 which contains only the SMB client, and thus you can only use SMB to browse for files on the PC, and not vice versa.
I need 2 PCs & 3 PowerMac G4s working together on the same network (10/100 based) on a Broadband connection, using a managed swith. I guess network and internet is easy, since it's all TCP/IP in recent versions of Mac, but the critical element is that I need file sharing both ways. We will be using a Mac as a file repository.
In the past, I heard that when a file (say an excel file) created on Mac, then opened on a PC, then resent to a Mac got corrupted. Something about a portion of the file's header being ripped out by Windows or someting. Is there truth to this? If so, how do we get around it?
I have heard of utilities like DAVE and MacLAN that may help, but I really don't have much info on these third party apps. Has anyone used these?
So, if anyone can tell me how to do this without messing up any of the Mac machines (irreplaceable data on all of them), I'd be really grateful.
Thanks again folks.
(http://www.ociw.edu/~birk/IMAGES/ANIMATED2/stress_ani.gif)
I used to use DAVE. Both DAVE and MacLAN are meant to allow OS 9 and older machines to network with PCs. Since smb networking is built in to OS X, these products are of little use, although I think DAVE still tries to sell an OS X version with extra features. You would be better of upgrading OS X rather than looking at one of these products.
Quote from: Nu2Mac on March 23, 2005, 04:23:24 PM
In the past, I heard that when a file (say an excel file) created on Mac, then opened on a PC, then resent to a Mac got corrupted. Something about a portion of the file's header being ripped out by Windows or someting. Is there truth to this? If so, how do we get around it?
I have heard of utilities like DAVE and MacLAN that may help, but I really don't have much info on these third party apps. Has anyone used these?
Some Mac files are dual-forked - they have a data and a resource fork. Windows files are generally single-forked, and trying to open a file from a Mac on Windows sometimes fails beacuse Windows ignores the resource fork. OS X takes care of this problem by creating an invisible shadow file named "._originall_file_name" that contains the resources and probably some other stuff. DAVE played a similar trick on OS 9. If you use OS X 10.2.6 or later you should have no problem sharing files between Macs and PCs.
Many applications, such as Microsoft Office, only create files with data forks, which both platforms can read. There are still problems sharing files with embedded graphics and movies (such as Powerpoint), but that has more to do with how Microsoft stores stuff than how the two platforms work.
thanks folks, this sheds some light on what i must do.
cheers