Creating an SMB share in Windows XP and sharing it with your Mac
There are two types of sharing that you can set up in Windows XP, Simple File Sharing and non-simple file sharing. Simple file sharing allows you to quickly create a file share without the use of any users, everyone has access to the files, non-simple file sharing allows you to create a little more advanced share where you can specify which users can access the share.
If you would like to set up Simple File sharing take a look at my other post “Simple way to set up file sharing in Windows XP “
Let’s Get started
***Make sure your Windows user account has a password, if your password is blanc this will not work. You may also need to disable any third party firewalls if you are running any.
1. Let’s enable non-simple file sharing, open up Windows Explorer in Windows then at the top menu bar click on Tools > Folder Options.
2. Remove the checkmark from “Simple File Sharing”
3. In Windows Explorer choose the folder that you would like to share and choose Sharing and Security.
4. Click on Share this folder, and click on Permissions.
5. Place a checkmark for everyone to Change/Read permissions, click on Apply and OK. You can optionally add a specific user here that you want to have access to this folder.
6. Open up command prompt inside of Windows and check your ip address, we will need it once we connect to Windows from the Mac.
7. On the Mac side open up Finder and at the top menu bar click on GO > Connect to Server.
8. Enter smb://ipaddressofxpmachine
9. Enter your login credentials for Windows
10. Choose the share you would like to mound and click OK.
11. Now you will be able to see and access the Windows SMB share on your Mac
