If this item is checked, then file sharing will no longer work. Everything should work fine with the firewall enabled with default settings, but if you go to firewall and then Firewall Options, you can block all incoming connections. The only setting that can cause issues is the firewall on OS X. You should now be able to copy files back and forth from Windows to Mac and vice versa. Now you’ll get the same dialog box where you have to enter the username and password for your Mac user account. Click on Start, then Run and type in the IP address or computer name: If everything went well, you should see some shared folders now on your Windows computer!Īnother way to connect is to use the Run command from the Start Menu. If the user account on your Mac had spaces, don’t worry because Windows can handle it just fine. Enter the same username and password that you had entered in the Windows File sharing dialog on OS X earlier. Now when you double-click on the computer name, it should pop up a login dialog box. If Windows asks you to enable Network Discovery, then go ahead and do that. You should see the Mac computer listed there. One way is to simply open up Explorer and click on Network. There are a couple of ways you can do this. Now it’s time to try connect from your Windows machine. If you don’t do this step, you’ll be asked to enter the username and password from your Windows machine, but it will just give you an error even if you type it in correctly. For whatever reason, OS X has to store your Mac user account password in a less secure way in order to connect from a Windows machine. In order to connect from a Windows machine, you have to check the box next to the user name and enter your password. The only other thing you have to do is click on the Options button and you’ll see a section at the bottom called Windows File Sharing. Under Users, you can see the standard permissions and edit them as you see fit. Click the little + (plus) button to share any folder on your hard drive. Under Shared Folders, the Public folder is shared out by default. You’ll also see the IP address for the computer listed by the Options button. Click the Edit button to change the name. If you don’t, OS X will give it a short name automatically so that Windows can recognize it.

Starting at the top, you can change your computer name to something less complex so Windows users have an easier time connecting. This one dialog pretty much contains all the settings and options for sharing. Now go ahead and check the File Sharing box under Service to enable file sharing. Now click on the Sharing icon, which is where we need to go to configure all the sharing options.īefore you get started, make sure to click on the little gold lock icon at the bottom left otherwise everything will be greyed out and you won’t be able to make any changes. First go to the System Preferences menu option by clicking on the Apple icon at the top left and then clicking on System Preferences.

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