Tim from Sound Support was two hours into diagnosing my networking issues, and his imperturbability was starting to fade. "It's not supposed to work like this," he said, sounding almost frustrated. "I get that a lot," I said. "That's why you're here."
After a lot of complex deductive reasoning and many Unix command lines later, we found the problem to be an obscure setting in the computer ownership file. Seems that when I first got my MacBook Pro, I had messed something up as I was figuring out how to navigate the new OS (at one point my home folder vanished, and I had to retrieve it from wherever I had accidentally moved it--this might have been the instigating event). Since had I cloned all my settings from one computer to the other, both had the same problem.
Wireless networking still doesn't work, and won't until I get a wireless router that doesn't issue its own DHCP commands in conflict with the DSL modem's. I still don't like that networking on a Mac is a manual operation--you have to direct one computer to see the other every time you restart the computer, where with Windows it's a one time event. The drives on one Windows machine are always visible on another, once you map the drives. But it appears to Just Work now.
You can add drive mappings to your login items. First, connect to the network drive. Then, in System Preferences go to Accounts. Go to the login items tab. Drag the network drive from your desktop into the big stripey Login items box. The drive should now stay connected every time you either logout or shutdown/restart.
Posted by: matt | August 09, 2007 at 02:55 PM
I knew if I whined about this someone would tell me the solution. Thanks.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | August 09, 2007 at 03:14 PM
Well, I tried this method, and it broke my network. Without thinking, I dragged the volumes from a Finder window, and they didn't load, they went "poof." They gone. If I go "Go" and "Connect to Server" they're greyed out.
I've got a query into Tim about how to fix it, but thought you should know. I don't know yet if Macs are easier to use, but they appear to be easier to break.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | August 09, 2007 at 06:39 PM
Doug, this is so sad!
R
Posted by: Robin Shapiro | August 09, 2007 at 09:43 PM
Huh. They do indeed go poof if you drag them from a finder window instead of the desktop. Although in my case, this doesn't seem to disconnect them as they are still available on the desktop; they just don't appear in finder windows. I couldn't get them to grey out of the Connect to server.
All apologies for starting you down a dangerous path. I'm happy to try to help make it right, so feel free to email me.
Posted by: matt | August 10, 2007 at 06:29 AM
Hey, found the fix. I just removed the drives from the log-in menu, and now I can connect to them again.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | August 10, 2007 at 11:31 AM
Doug,
If you have a router that will accept a DHCP setting from your DSL modem, and you only need the router to go wireless try plugging the router into the DSL model using one of the standard ports - not the WAN or Internet labeled ones, then any other PCs into the remaining ones. This will effectively turn your router into a wireless switch, and your DSL modem will handle the DHCP traffic.
drop me an email if you have any questions - grweb at msn dot com
Posted by: Graham R. | August 27, 2007 at 11:06 AM
Graham,
Oh man, I understand about a tenth of what you said there. Mostly the articles and the prepositions. The nouns--over my head. That's why I have to pay people to do this stuff.
But I did get a modem with wireless, and it appears to work fine now.
Posted by: Doug Plummer | August 27, 2007 at 03:27 PM
congrats :P and sorry for the tencho-talk i was in the middle of a work day fixing similar network problems :D
Posted by: Graham R. | September 12, 2007 at 09:52 AM