[LenrdZelig]

Hi All,
Thought I'd post the question here since I feel certaint that somebody somewhere might be able to help.

if you read any of the other forums, you might have seen that I bought a mac mini - so far it is cool as anything.

Where I use my computers, I'm on a dial up connection. No feasable option for high speed for the next several months, so no choice but to suck it up and get through it.

I have my music colelction on my Windows XP Home PC - a sizable collection. I would like to be able to somehow at least conenct with my music library on the PC with iTunes for Mac.

Both computers have an Ethernet port, and the Mac I have is wireless.

Someone suggested that I could just get a wireless card for the PC and could direct connect the two computers without the need of a hub that normally is used for high speed internet access.

I've read elsewhere that I CAN in fact do this with an Ethernet cable, provided I want to hook up only two computers, which is all I really need.

Ideally it would be cool to be able to share the Internet connection (for checking emails on the various email accounts on the two computers) - but primarly I'd like to be able to use my music library that lives on my PC on the Mac. And additinally be able to swap files back and forth between the two.

So................ has anyone done this wirelessly without a hub? If so, can you "lock down" the system so only those two computers are in it? How much of a pain in the ass is it with a Ethernet cable between the two computers?

I read on the apple site the information about moving ALL your stuff from one machine to the other, but I'm not in the position to need to do that just yet.

And since I'm using dial up it seems kind of stupid to spend a ton of money for the digs for that particular purpose when I don't need all that - I'd liken it to buying a Porsche to drive to the neighbors house 10 feet away. You could certainly do it, but it would be overill.

I've never used nor have set up any kind of LAN (eitehr wired or wireless) so I'm a total novice in that area. Where computers are concerned in general I'm fairly learned - not genius status, but not a complete idiot either.I read about it and it "sounds" easy, which usually means it isn't going to be (at least with my luck).

Any suggestions or comments and adive are greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time and I hope to hear from (any) of you very soon.

[Dave]

You need a ->crossover<- ethernet cable. It should cost around $5 - $10 at your local electronics store. This will let you share your files* as well as having both computers online at the same time.

*BTW, you know iTunes has built-in music sharing, right? It just streams the data over the network so that you won't have to copy all the files to your mac.

[LenrdZelig]

Originally Posted by Dave You need a ->crossover<- ethernet cable. It should cost around $5 - $10 at your local electronics store. This will let you share your files* as well as having both computers online at the same time. *BTW, you know iTunes has built-in music sharing, right? It just streams the data over the network so that you won't have to copy all the files to your mac.

I had read about the built in music sharing with iTunes yes, which is what gave me the idea in the first place. Seemed to make more sense doing it that way.... at least for the moment.

Ok - so a cross over cable. Thank you. Have you set up a computer this way before? Specifically a Mac/PC config?

:: thinks ::

I will wait and get the cable before I ask any more questions, because I'm sure I'm going to have them.

Thanks again

[LenrdZelig]

Okay.......
I have the cross over cable (bright orange one) and have them connected to both the Windows XP Home computer and the Mac Mini OS X Tiger comptuer.

Um..... now what.

[bassplayinMacFiend]

Start up iTunes on both machines. Make sure iTunes sharing is turned on in System Preferences on the Mac (in the Sharing Preference). You may need to do something on the Windows machine, especially if you have XP SP2 & firewall active.

[LenrdZelig]

Funny - I was just coming online to state what has happened "next"

I connected them, and fiddled about with the connections on the XP side, since (I think) I have that one set up as the server. According to the information supplied on the Apple website I should be able to "see" The XP computer somewhere on my Macintosh, but I can't.

I attempted and fiddled about with the stuff on the Mac side as well, and it told me it could see nothing.

So for the Hell of it, on the XP iTunes, I set it to share my library, then toggled back to the Macintosh........ AND MY XP LIBRARY SHOWED UP on the Mac side!!!!! Absolutely brilliant!!!!

Since I am able to play music from the XP iTunes, doesn't it stand to reason that the computers are now networked? And if that is the case, how do I go about actually transferring files (photos and whatnot) from one machine to the other.

I can't "See" either computer on the other, but the music libraries from one can play on the other...... How do I go about setting up file transferring?

And as stated in my first post, thanks for the advice. Perhaps one day when I've messed about with these machines enough I can repay the favor to the next guy in line.

[julesstoop]

So for the Hell of it, on the XP iTunes, I set it to share my library, then toggled back to the Macintosh........ AND MY XP LIBRARY SHOWED UP on the Mac side!!!!! Absolutely brilliant!!!!

That's probably what they meant, where they say you should be able to 'see' your other computer.

[BlueRabbit]

Actually, you don't need a crossover cable specifically. The Mac mini (and pretty much every recent Apple product) has auto-sensing Ethernet ports, which will see which type of cable (crossover or patch) is connected. Very useful stuff. Also, here's the relevant Apple support doc.

[LenrdZelig]

Thanks for the link on the documentation. As stated within that, they suggest doing this very thing to transfer files from one back to the other, or make copies or whatever.

Yeah I think that is possibly what was meant within that particular documentation. However, as I stated before it is apparrent the computers are "seeing" one another, even if they aren't letting me in directly on the action. I can access the iTunes music libraries each from the other computers, but I can't change any info tags on the files being played from the other machine. Which is not really a big deal. The music was the prima face reason for hooking the two up.

It would be more advantagious to be able to access the folders from one machine to the other, for copying files and the like.

If anyone has any insight to how to turn this "on" it'd be great.

As soon as I figure it all out, I will post my results here. I'm certain there is a way to do it, just have to dig down and figure it out.

Thanks again.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by LenrdZelig Since I am able to play music from the XP iTunes, doesn't it stand to reason that the computers are now networked? And if that is the case, how do I go about actually transferring files (photos and whatnot) from one machine to the other.

Yup.

To set up sharing on the Mac side, use System Preferences -> Sharing. Enable the "Windows Sharing" checkbox and read the instructions at the bottom for accessing from your Windows box.

[LenrdZelig]

UPDATE

....... something happened........ and I don't know what, but the iTunes libraries between the two computers won't share anymore.

This afternoon I was working on a text file on the Mac and the music abruptly stopped - I went to click on the shared libraries and I received the following error:

"Not accessible for and unkown reason (-3264)"

I changed nothing on either machine that I'm aware of - definitely nothing on the XP machine. I attempted a restore on the XP just in case something went wonky on it, but I get the same error code on either machine when I attempt to access the other computer's music library.

I attempted to shut down the firewall on the XP, and never had the firewall turned on with the Mac (oops) - still nothing.

I looked on the discussion boards on Apple and while someone else had the same problem, a solution hadn't been posted.

It's weird, because it worked flawlessly (as I stated above) when I first plugged it in.......


Any ideas for troubleshooting?