Comments on: File Sharing from Windows Vista to OS X

By: Chris Pirillo

Chris Pirillo — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:57:00 +0000

Tell me about it. :)

By: Andrewm

Andrewm — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:45:00 +0000

this was the best freakin idea ever. file sharing through networking and network mapping blah blah. Vista is the worst! I agree with Thomas, and I’m using his procedures. Fool proof, fools.

By: MALLP

MALLP — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:56:14 +0000

Thanks so much for this info. – J

By: Thomas

Thomas — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 22:48:23 +0000

Gosh, just use Filezilla and turn on FTP Sharing on the Mac. Note the IP address. Open Filezilla on the PC and use the IP as the host, the Mac’s login info as the user/pass. Works over wifi and wired connections. Very simple, easy, and free.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 05 May 2010 11:41:14 +0000

Thanks! Works in Windows 7 also. I was able to connect by providing the domain of my Win7 box but had to keep entering this each time I logged out of the Win7. I had tried using the \username and .local\username to no avail. But the IP did the trick!

Thanks!!

By: Coban

Coban — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:04:42 +0000

I know why it doesn’t work… and why it’s getting harder to use. It has nothing to do with code, or open vs closed or even PC to mac or vis a vis. The real reason? Money. Mobile me is on both my vista and my mac. it boasts it will make all this so much simpler. I have no doubt it would. since it costs money to use. why give away the milk when you can charge to use the cow, right? and so it goes. eventually we will probably be paying regular licensing fees just to use our os, and what would we do? pay. because what choice would you have? Don’t like this? Use open source. Unfortunately, I’m not tech savy enough for that, so I guess I’m screwed.

By: Thankful Insomniac

Thankful Insomniac — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:31:59 +0000

It’s 3:30am and I’ve been struggling with this for a truly unhealthy length of time. I just assumed that I was configuring something wrong… and it turns out it was this “IP username” nonsense! Your insight worked like a charm! You’re a lifesaver, Chris! ;^)

By: Liz Holzer

Liz Holzer — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:37:40 +0000

thanks so much- i got everything set up to the point where i could see the network, but it wouldn’t let me log on- the tip about logging in using the IP is really the turning point.

Awesome, useful and very clearly described steps.

By: Darren Wilcox

Darren Wilcox — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:05:18 +0000

Thanks for the tip’s on this one. I have been trying to get file sharing setup for the best part of a day. Then I came across your blog entry. I followed your steps and all is talking great now. Many thanks dude

By: Bomma

Bomma — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:17:39 +0000

Followed the instrutions here to the “T” connected to the mac ok , and files dropped in the folder on the mac can be seen on the pc, still get empty folder the other way around???

By: Yorick

Yorick — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:13:24 +0000

It’s times like this that make me wish I could spell Haleluija!

Now to sift through the rest of the thread if the accessing Vista from OS question is answered.

By: Brett

Brett — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:20:16 +0000

For those who are continually getting password errors, remember that case sensitivity is important in both username and password – this caught me out a little, thanks Rocco.

Also, has anyone else had an issue where on their Vista machine, when transferring files from the Mac it is very fast (over 400Mbps on a Gbps LAN with jumbo frames on!), but when copying the same file back it is extraordinarily slow – maybe 100 times slower or more?

I’ve tried Blueshifters recommendation to use WinSCP, which improves the situation, but still VERY slow transfer…

By: MikeG

MikeG — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:37:40 +0000

The login.password issue was exactly what I was looking for – had both machines talking to each other. Then I upgraded from an old router to a wireless one for the new Vista laptop and discovered that the Mac was no longer able to connect to the PC. It saw the PC, but was unable to see the share points I’d set up.

After repeatedly going through all the networking and sharing panels on both machines, plus the screens in the router config, I finally realized that both the Norton Firewall and the Windows firewalls were on at the same time.

I turned off the Norton firewall and boom – I could connect!

Here’s another trick I figured out because I cannot seem to set the Mac (OSX 10.4) so that areas outside the home directory can be accessed via network, such as files on other volumes.

I turned on the ftp function in the Mac Sharing panel, and use an ftp client to connect. When I connect via ftp, I can access the whole machine’s hard drive space except for protected directories.

By: Drew

Drew — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:22:27 +0000

Chris, thank you so much for writing this article! I’ve been trying for about an hour to figure this out running between my Mac and my new Vista computer again and again. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working like it did in XP where I just put in my username and password. At least that’s one more Vista bug to file into my head!

PS- I probably could have saved all that time by Google searching this right away! But first I configured a VNC server and client to look at my Mac from my Vista PC, so I could stop running back and forth from room to room. Oh well, live and learn!

Thanks man!

Drew

By: egemon

egemon — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 18:22:02 +0000

In the point 3 of your tutorial you say that in order to access to your mac files you have to insert a user,password when prompted.You are suggesting to do so following the combinationMacIPAddress\YourMacUsername .I’m doing this inserting all the possible and immaginable combinations ,but I get always an error.Any help would be highly appreciated.Thank you very much and sorry for my english.
Egemon…