Mac OS X 10.5 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 file sharing. When you turn on file 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, as well as a user name and password for a user account on your computer.
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 in Accounts preferences.
To set up Windows file sharing:
Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click Sharing.
Select File Sharing in the list, then click Options.
Select “Share files and folders using SMB.”
Select the name of the user account that will share files and enter the password for that user.
Click Done.
Give the address of your computer to Windows users you want to share your computer.
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 in a less secure manner, 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 less securely.