How can I create a network between a Mac OSX 10.6 and Windows XP?

Question

I searched a lot for this, but couldn't find an answer. Is there any technical difficulties in networking between these? I know I can run a webserver on any of these and access files, is there a proper way?

Answer 1

Nope. They both implement full tcp/ip stacks, handle multicast, unicast and straight udp fine. It's all good - network awy young man.

Answer 2

Well technically to "create a network" you need only plug each computer into a router or hub and have them be able to talk to each other through any means...ping for example.

If you want a network drive that's accessible on both machines, you can try Samba and create a samba share on the computer that will "host" the files for all other computers.

A web server implies you're going to use apache, which is made for sharing material to an audience and is easier to share it one way. I would go with FTP if you want to share files between the computers and OS X has a great one built in under System Preferences > Sharing

That's not really the question you're asking though..."is there a proper way". That's subjective. I personally prefer to have the server technologies on a Unix based operating system. That includes OS X - but like I said, it's a personal preference

Hope that helps a little..

Answer 3

There's no issues sharing files or setting up a web server on either box. The protocols are (more or less) standardized between them.

In Mac OS X you can enable the built in Apache web server and/or Samba file sharing via the Sharing preferences pane.

Under windows you can enable file sharing by right clicking on a folder and selecting Sharing... Or you can install a web server, IIS from your windows install disk or Apache HTTPd from http://httpd.apache.org/ .