NetworkClue

[ncadmin]

Typically all my clients have a windows based network. I am looking for ways to get Macs onboard as quickly and easily as possible. I would prefer to set the Mac up to use a Samba client (smb://) instead of installing the appletalk plug-in on the Windows servers.

What version of OSX do my Mac users need? Or do I need to install a Samba program on the Macs? Where do I get this program? Does it come on the OSX CD?

[atomarch]

The ability to connect to a windows machine is built directly into OS X.

10.1 includes ONLY the Samba client and 10.2 has both the client AND server, so windows machines can connect back to the mac.

1. From the finder menu, select "Go" and choose "Connect to Server"
2. Select the machine you would like to connect to, or simply type in smb://computer_ip
3. You will then be prompted for logon info

--atomarch

[ncadmin]

Here are some great articles for getting a mac on a Windows network:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/entouragex/entouragex.aspx?pid=entouragex - Connecting Entorage with Exchange

http://homepage.mac.com/william_white/smbdoc.html - Connecting a Mac to Windows Server Fileshares

http://www.macwindows.com/ - a little bit or everything.

I will post more when I actually go through these articles and try them out on my clients.

[ncadmin]

I recently upgraded a client a little while ago to a Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Domain. When I was done, the lone Mac user could no longer access a file share via SMB on one of the DCs. After a little research I found that it is a security setting applied in the Default Domain Controllers Policy that prevents this.

What you need to do is disable 3 network security enryption settings (thereby making your network less secure) to get the Mac to talk to a DC. Or you can alternately choose to move the file share to a non-Domain Controller.

Here are the settings you must change:

Default Domain Controllers Policy ->
Computer policy ->
Windows Settings ->
Security Settings ->
Local Policies ->
Security Options ->
Domain Member: Digitally encrypt or sign secure channel data (always)
&
Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (if client agrees)
&
Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always)

Just set these to disabled.

Finally click start -> Run
Type in gpupdate /force

This will tell the server to update the new security settings.

Now go party.

[ncadmin]

Another warning for you - Mac OS X 10.5 causes some trouble. You have READ-ONLY access to the Windows network shared files and cannot save new files.

It has to do with the desktop.ini file. The problem may be how Windows shows customized icons using the desktop.ini file. If the hidden desktop.ini file is to be used, the file (or folder) is marked as Read-only. Leopard interprets this as a literal Read-Only and does not allow the file to be written to.

the command to turn off the Read-Only attribute is:
1) Start -> Run cmd
2) e:
3) cd \common
3) attrib -R +S /s *

References:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb776832.aspx