Mixed Network: XP+Vista+MacOSX

Hi everyone,
unlike many others in here I could easily share folders between my PC with a
fresh Vista Home Premium setup and my laptop with Windows XP SP2. Some days
ago I received a new MacPro and I started to have problems in network
sharing. After lots of trials and errors I decided to ask for some help.
Hope some of you can lend an hand even if the problem is cross-platform.

My network setup is the following:

- First PC is connected to a 3Com switch
- MacPro is connected to the same switch
- Switch is connected to a Linksys wireless router
- Laptop is connected to the network via wireless
- I have an Xbox 360 connected, too, hooked up to the Linksys router

DHCP (on the Linksys) gives every machine an IP, so the network seems to be
properly configured. Vista and XP can talk to each other (I couldn't share a
full hard drive in Vista as I was used in XP Professional, that's not a big
issue but any hint on this matter is more than welcome), Xbox360's Media
Center Extender can reach my multimedia files and everything seems fine.

Problem is I can't access MacOSX's sharing from Vista, and I can't copy big
files accessing to Vista's shared folders from the Mac.
If I access to the shared folders from the Mac, I can mount them and see the
files inside, but I can transfer only little files, pictures and stuff like
that. If I try to copy bigger files, like 5-600 MBytes, MacOS "thinks" for a
while, then it starts the transfer at ridicolous speed (several minutes to
obtain a single MB) and then gives up returning an error.

On the other side, Vista can find the MacPro in the network window and if I
double-clic on the icon it asks for a login name and password. Fine, but
when I enter the username and password of the MacOSX user, Vista says that
it's impossible to establish a connection and asks for correct username and
password.

Laptop, however, seems to like all the other computers: as I said I can
access to the shared folders of the Vista PC, but in this case, when I try
double-clicking on the MacPro's icon, I insert the very same username and
password that Vista refused and I can access the shared folders on the
MacPro without any problem.

At present, I'm forced to use the laptop as a "parking lot" when I have to
transfer files from the main PC to the MacPro, but I'd like to solve the
problem since this is something I'm going to do very often.
I tried to disable Vista's built-in firewall without luck, I tried to give
any possible permission in the Vista's sharing properties, but couldn't
solve the problem. I even made the same user accounts on both machines, with
matching usernames and passwords, but again, Vista refuses to login to the
MacPro and MacPro can't transfer big files. Sharing services seem to be
fine, as XP Laptop can access and transfer to both computers. I don't have
any third-party firewall-antivirus-blockers installed on the Vista PC.

Onestly, I don't know what to try next :)

Any help would be more than welcome.

Thanks for your time.

|Sole| wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> unlike many others in here I could easily share folders between my PC
> with a fresh Vista Home Premium setup and my laptop with Windows XP SP2.
> Some days ago I received a new MacPro and I started to have problems in
> network sharing. After lots of trials and errors I decided to ask for
> some help. Hope some of you can lend an hand even if the problem is
> cross-platform.

(snippage)

In order to share files with Mac OS X with Windows File Sharing enabled,
you will need to change the following policy in Windows Vista:

Start>Run>secpol.msc [enter]

Click on "Local Policies" --> "Security Options"

Navigate to the policy "Network Security: LAN Manager authentication
level" and double-click it to get its Properties. By default Windows
Vista sets the policy to "NTVLM2 responses only". Use the drop-down
arrow to change this to "LM and NTLM – use NTLMV2 session security if
negotiated".

In Vista Home Premium, you won't have this tool so per Steve Winograd, do:

1. Run the registry editor and open this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa

1. If it doesn't already exist, create a DWORD value named
LmCompatibilityLevel

3. Set the value to 1

4. Reboot

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

"Malke" <notreally@invalid.invalid> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:e972$aPWHHA.1200@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> |Sole| wrote:

> Malke

Thanks Malke, now I can access MacOSX from Vista PC and vice-versa and I can
tranfer big files. The speed reported still isn't very appealing (500-900
KB/s), but it's better than nothing :)

Thanks again for your help.

|Sole| wrote:
> "Malke" <notreally@invalid.invalid> ha scritto nel messaggio
> news:e972$aPWHHA.1200@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> |Sole| wrote:
>
>> Malke
>
> Thanks Malke, now I can access MacOSX from Vista PC and vice-versa and I
> can tranfer big files. The speed reported still isn't very appealing
> (500-900 KB/s), but it's better than nothing :)
>
> Thanks again for your help.

You're most welcome. I haven't noticed a speed issue between my Vista
box and the MacBook. Maybe you need updated drivers for your Vista NIC?
Or maybe the switch is old? Or not. ;-) There have been quite a few
posts about slow file transfers over LANs but no definitive answers that
I can see yet.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

"Malke" <notreally@invalid.invalid> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:O2t86KSWHHA.4028@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> |Sole| wrote:
>> "Malke" <notreally@invalid.invalid> ha scritto nel messaggio
>> news:e972$aPWHHA.1200@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>> |Sole| wrote:
>>
>>> Malke
>>
>> Thanks Malke, now I can access MacOSX from Vista PC and vice-versa and I
>> can tranfer big files. The speed reported still isn't very appealing
>> (500-900 KB/s), but it's better than nothing :)
>>
>> Thanks again for your help.
>
> You're most welcome. I haven't noticed a speed issue between my Vista box
> and the MacBook. Maybe you need updated drivers for your Vista NIC? Or
> maybe the switch is old? Or not. ;-) There have been quite a few posts
> about slow file transfers over LANs but no definitive answers that I can
> see yet.

Thanks, I'll surf a bit on old posts and I'll try for updated drivers for my
motherboard (I use the embedded Ethernet), but I'll exclude the switch from
the possible causes of the problem: before I got the MacPro I used my laptop
attached to the switch at times, when I didn't need to move around and I
needed the most network speed between the two computers. Well, I never
experience any slodowns in file transfers between the two pcs, so I'd assume
that the switch is ok.

As Malke posted, you can work around the issue by setting Vista to a lower
security level. You can also upgrade Samba on your MacPro to version 3.0.22
or later and add "client ntlmv2 auth = yes" to your smb.conf -- this may
also help your performance.

"|Sole|" <chenesai@dellamia.mail> a écrit dans le message de
news:624988EE-82AF-4EC8-97EB-5F18E074D997@microsoft.com...
> Hi everyone,
> unlike many others in here I could easily share folders between my PC with
> a fresh Vista Home Premium setup and my laptop with Windows XP SP2. Some
> days ago I received a new MacPro and I started to have problems in network
> sharing. After lots of trials and errors I decided to ask for some help.
> Hope some of you can lend an hand even if the problem is cross-platform.
>
> My network setup is the following:
>
> - First PC is connected to a 3Com switch
> - MacPro is connected to the same switch
> - Switch is connected to a Linksys wireless router
> - Laptop is connected to the network via wireless
> - I have an Xbox 360 connected, too, hooked up to the Linksys router
>
> DHCP (on the Linksys) gives every machine an IP, so the network seems to
> be properly configured. Vista and XP can talk to each other (I couldn't
> share a full hard drive in Vista as I was used in XP Professional, that's
> not a big issue but any hint on this matter is more than welcome),
> Xbox360's Media Center Extender can reach my multimedia files and
> everything seems fine.
>
> Problem is I can't access MacOSX's sharing from Vista, and I can't copy
> big files accessing to Vista's shared folders from the Mac.
> If I access to the shared folders from the Mac, I can mount them and see
> the files inside, but I can transfer only little files, pictures and stuff
> like that. If I try to copy bigger files, like 5-600 MBytes, MacOS
> "thinks" for a while, then it starts the transfer at ridicolous speed
> (several minutes to obtain a single MB) and then gives up returning an
> error.
>
> On the other side, Vista can find the MacPro in the network window and if
> I double-clic on the icon it asks for a login name and password. Fine, but
> when I enter the username and password of the MacOSX user, Vista says that
> it's impossible to establish a connection and asks for correct username
> and password.
>
> Laptop, however, seems to like all the other computers: as I said I can
> access to the shared folders of the Vista PC, but in this case, when I try
> double-clicking on the MacPro's icon, I insert the very same username and
> password that Vista refused and I can access the shared folders on the
> MacPro without any problem.
>
> At present, I'm forced to use the laptop as a "parking lot" when I have to
> transfer files from the main PC to the MacPro, but I'd like to solve the
> problem since this is something I'm going to do very often.
> I tried to disable Vista's built-in firewall without luck, I tried to give
> any possible permission in the Vista's sharing properties, but couldn't
> solve the problem. I even made the same user accounts on both machines,
> with matching usernames and passwords, but again, Vista refuses to login
> to the MacPro and MacPro can't transfer big files. Sharing services seem
> to be fine, as XP Laptop can access and transfer to both computers. I
> don't have any third-party firewall-antivirus-blockers installed on the
> Vista PC.
>
> Onestly, I don't know what to try next :)
>
> Any help would be more than welcome.
>
> Thanks for your time.

"Michael A. Bishop (MSFT)" <michael.bishop@microsoft.com> ha scritto nel
messaggio news:ORVdjYfWHHA.388@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> As Malke posted, you can work around the issue by setting Vista to a lower
> security level. You can also upgrade Samba on your MacPro to version
> 3.0.22 or later and add "client ntlmv2 auth = yes" to your smb.conf --
> this may also help your performance.


Michael,
thanks for you help, too. I will work around your solution asap, I'm still
fresh on MacOS X and I need to gain confidence in using it :)

Thank you very very much !
This was a very simple and effective solution for me to connect to my MacOSX
Server from my Vista Business Edition PC.
God bless you !


"Malke" wrote:

> |Sole| wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> > unlike many others in here I could easily share folders between my PC
> > with a fresh Vista Home Premium setup and my laptop with Windows XP SP2.
> > Some days ago I received a new MacPro and I started to have problems in
> > network sharing. After lots of trials and errors I decided to ask for
> > some help. Hope some of you can lend an hand even if the problem is
> > cross-platform.
>
> (snippage)
>
> In order to share files with Mac OS X with Windows File Sharing enabled,
> you will need to change the following policy in Windows Vista:
>
> Start>Run>secpol.msc [enter]
>
> Click on "Local Policies" --> "Security Options"
>
> Navigate to the policy "Network Security: LAN Manager authentication
> level" and double-click it to get its Properties. By default Windows
> Vista sets the policy to "NTVLM2 responses only". Use the drop-down
> arrow to change this to "LM and NTLM – use NTLMV2 session security if
> negotiated".
>
> In Vista Home Premium, you won't have this tool so per Steve Winograd, do:
>
> 1. Run the registry editor and open this key:
>
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
>
> 1. If it doesn't already exist, create a DWORD value named
> LmCompatibilityLevel
>
> 3. Set the value to 1
>
> 4. Reboot
>
> Malke
> --
> Elephant Boy Computers
> www.elephantboycomputers.com
> "Don't Panic!"
> MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
>