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My network's gone tits up after a downgrade! Help?

I've finally taken the plunge and updated both my home computers.

I've "up"graded my own MacBook from Tiger to Leopard and the boy's PC from XP Home to Vista Ultimate SP1, both clean installs.

Pre-upgrades I had the following setup.

Folders shared from the PC so I could connect and dump the odd film/mp3 or whatever in the boy's My Documents folder.

Printer shared from the PC so I could print directly from the Mac provided the PC and printer were switched on.

VNC server installed on the PC so me and my girl could keep an eye on the boy when he's doing his homework and also so I could do the odd bit of admin stuff while on the couch downstairs with the Macbook.

I've managed to get the folder sharing working so far but the printer's got me pulling my hair out. Vista's showing it as being shared but nothing shows up under "Windows" in the OS X printer preferences.

Also, Vista doesn't support VNC because of some new security layer or another and I can't use Microsoft's Remote Desktop software cos it insists on logging you in as a new user which is no good for when we're trying to keep tabs on what the boy's doing.

Most of the time we just want to be able to connect and see what's on screen and then there's the odd occasion when I need to control the PC for admin tasks. Any suggestions?

TIA,

Rob.

Good news... UltraVNC is free and works with Vista.

I found a helpful forum post for your printing woes:

quote:

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1. Navigate to the Windows Vista Control Panel
2. Go to the "Programs and Features" pane
3. Click on "Turn Windows Features on or off"
4. Turn on te LPD protocol and make sure that all desired printers are set to be shared
5. On the Mac OS X system, open Printer Setup Utility (located in Applications/Utilities)
6. Hold down the "Option" key and click the "More Printers" button
7. From the top menu select "Advanced"
8. From the "Device:" field select "LPD/LPR Host or Printer"
9. In the "Device URI:" field, lpd://(name of your Windows Vista system)/(name of your printer), e.g. lpd://homepc/HomePrinter
10. Click the "Add" button

instead of using your computer name, use it's ip address.

instead of - lpd://homepc/HomePrinter

use

lpd://192.168.1.101/printername

also, after turning on the lpd protocol on the pc, goto control panels and add printer. It should add the network printer.

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Wow, that was fast.

The boy's home and busily gaming away now but will have a go at that tomorrow and let you know how I get on.

Thanks a lot.

quote:

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Originally posted by R08
Wow, that was fast.

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and you also found out that your mother was really your father.

__________________
I'M NEVER COMING BACK TO THESE FORUMS... BOOHOOHOO

OH WAIT...I'M BACK

I have the same issues with finding shares on XP/Vista under Leopard too, it doesn't seem to pick them up automatically anymore. To rectify this, in Finder under the Go header, there's Connect to Server. In that I can then connect to any machine with standard Samba sharing.. ie:

smb://pho2

or whatever will connect to my PC on the network 'pho2' and will then bring up the list of shares. I don't know why I need to do this (maybe it's fixed in 10.5.3 which I've been too lazy to install) but it fixes a daft problem at least

__________________
563-773-1880

<Dwaggy> i caught you a delicious Bass
<The404> This is because you are an idiot

That's how I've always connected to shares anyway, using the apple key + k rather than browsing through the finder so hadn't even noticed that functionality not working.

Shares are no problem now that I've figured out that Vista doesn't like sharing the user's name folder. I had to individually share each of the sub folders inside it i.e. Documents, Music, Videos, Pictures etc...

Think I'm all sorted now as I've got Neversoft's instructions for connecting to the printer and after a bit more digging I've discovered that the latest beta version of UltraVNC supposedly works under Vista so hopefully by tomorrow afternoon I should have my network back.

Thanks for all the suggestions,

I'll let you know how I get on.

Got UVNC working ok now. Can't use the mirror driver though sadly as it doesn't support Aero and the boy'd notice he was being spied on so it's quite slow. Still, this is a good start.

Followed all the printer instructions and then turned the thing on to test it and it's having a strop about not recognizing one of the ink tanks so have had to order some new ink and won't know if it works til it gets here.

Once again, thanks for all the suggestions.

Cheers.

I have issue with the Beta 2 of RDC for OSX connecting to Vista :<

It connects fine to any other windows version, and I use my mac for remote maintenance of all our servers regularly, but can't connect to my headless vista box at home with it.

:<

__________________

No idea fella I'm afraid, did try the RDC beta briefly and was able to connect to the Vista Ultimate SP1 machine no problems but it logs you in as a new user so was no good for the monitoring I needed to do.

I was logging in with an admin account if that's any help, perhaps it's a UAC issue...