Mac OS X 10.4 Help
Setting up a Mac computer to share files with Windows users
You can set up your Mac so that you can share files with Windows computer users.
To allow Windows users to connect to your computer, you need to turn on Windows Sharing. When you turn on Windows Sharing, Mac OS X uses the Samba server software to provide SMB/CIFS file services.
You also need to give the Windows users the network address of your computer, and a user name and password of a user account on your computer.
- Open System Preferences and click Sharing and, if necessary, click Services.
- Select Windows Sharing in the list, then click Start.
- Click Accounts and select the name of the user account that will share files. Enter the password for that user.
- Look below the services list for your computer's network address. Give this address to Windows users.
You can provide users with the user name and password of any account on your computer. To help keep your computer secure, you may want to create a special account for Windows users in Accounts preferences.
Because passwords of the user accounts for Windows are stored insecurely, turn off the account when it is not being used. Before you turn off Windows Sharing, turn off all the accounts you enabled. Otherwise, the passwords are still stored insecurely.
If you want to use a user account that existed before you installed Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), you may need to reset the password for the account using Accounts preferences.