Quick guide for Mac users to connecting to servers in Windows, a.k.a. mapping a network drive
In order to connect to your home directory on Saturn, or Park Till 5 AM or your OSX computer you need to establish a network connection. This is equivalent to Connect to server command that you will find under the Go menu in OSX and in Windows is called mapping a network drive. Before I go further, I need to reiterate a major difference between OSX and Windows that you should be aware of by now. In OSX any CD, firewire drive, flash drive or network drive (server) appears directly on your Desktop along with your system hard drive (Mac, MacHD, etc.) In Windows all mentioned drives appear under My Computer icon and have a corresponding letter with C being the system drive. The actual drive name matters little in Windows and you need to refer to the disk (drive) by its letter in file navigation. However, for practical purposes it's not all that different as all you need to do is to click and double click with your mouse, just the way you do it in OSX to move files around.
Another important difference is that Windows relies heavily on right-clicking, i.e. using the right mouse button to invoke Contextual Menus that depend on what you click on. This functionality also existed in Mac OS since the days of OS9 as Option-Click (or you could use a PC USB mouse) but it was always optional, in Windows it's necessary. If you are using a PC emulator such as Virtual PC and you have a regular one-button Apple mouse you will need to hold the Control key while clicking to emulate right click. If you're using Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection software to remotely connect to a PC you will need to hold Control-Shift keys together while clicking to emulate right click.
This guide is based on screen shots and item names from Windows XP but, with minor differences, Windows 2000 works the same way. These instructions willnot work with Windows ME, 98, 95.
Note that you will not be able to browse for the servers in Windows. You will have to specify where you want to go.
Note that in order to connect from Windows to your Mac running OSX you must have Windows Sharing enabled in your Sharing control panel and that you have enabled your user to connect to Windows Sharing. You will find instructions at the bottom of this page.
Finally, this guide assumes that the PC was already set up and configured properly so we're not covering any prior setting up in this guide. Generally speaking, if the PC was configured by us this instructions will work. Otherwise refer to section on Windows File Sharing here.
So keep those these things in mind before proceeding.
OK, let's start then...
First, locate an icon on Windows desktop called My Network Places. This is your equivalent of the Go menu.
Right click on the My Network Places icon and select MapNetwork Drive from the contextual menu.
A new window will open. In this window you will need to specify few things:
- which of Windows drive letters will be mapped to the server: Drive
- the address of the server: Folder
- your user name and password
You can leave the letter at the default unless you have specific reason to select another letter.
In the Folder box type the address of the server followed by the shared drive on the server using the following syntax:
\\server address\share name - NOTE THE BACKSLASHES!
Server address is the DNS name of the server, examples:
saturn.skb.med.nyu.edu
admin09.skb.med.nyu.edu
titan.skb.med.nyu.edu
When connecting to saturn the share name is the same as your saturn user name. When connecting to another Mac the share name is the same as the name of your OSX home directory. When connecting to another PC you need to know the name of the shared folder.
Since my saturn user name is adam I'd type the following in the Drive box:
\\saturn.skb.med.nyu.edu\adam - again, please note the backshlashes, it's \ not / and there are two in the front \\
When connecting to Titan it would be:
\\titan.skb.med.nyu.edu\titan
Don't close anything yet!
Now you need to specify the user name and password for the server you are connecting to. If you don't, Windows will use the user name and the password that you used to login to this Windows computer, which most of the time is different. Click the Connect using a different name link...
Connect As... dialog box will open, type your user name and password and click OK. When connecting to Saturn use your saturn user name and password. When connecting to your Mac use your OSX login user name and password. When connecting to Titan use Titan as both user name and password (note capital T!)
Now click OK then click Finish.
The server shared folder will now appear "mapped" to one of your Windows drive letters.
In order to disconnect the network drive, right click on it and select Disconnect.
The next time you select MapNetwork Drive from My Network Places contextual menu you won't have to type the server address again as Windows will remember all recently accessed servers.
In order to connect from Windows PC to your Mac you need to turn on Windows Sharing in your Sharing control panel. Also, in this control panel you can look up the DNS name of your Mac, it's at the bottom of the window, where it says "Windows users can access your computer at..." see the image on the right.
Also, make sure that your OSX users are enabled to use Winows Sharing. Click the Accounts button....
And put checkmarks next to the users than need to be enabled.
