A Survivor's Story: File and Printer Sharing with Mac OS X and Windows 7

Recently, I bought a Windows 7 machine so that I could test it against OS X 10.6.2. In the process I made some discoveries and have some observations to share with you.

First, the discoveries. Yes, you can share files with OS X by “mapping” your Macintosh as a network drive to Windows 7. You can also network your Windows 7 machine to your Mac, same as you did with Windows XP.  So you can exchange files back and forth with no problems. On the Windows 7 side, I found the network connection to be persistent. As soon as I booted up my Mac, the Windows 7 machine displayed the icon for the network drive.

Now come the problems. Yes, I could print from the Windows 7 machine to the Macintosh's Canon iP4300 printer, but I have yet to set up printing from the Mac to the Windows 7 machine. Windows 7 thwarted my best efforts.

My best advice for someone with both a Macintosh and a Windows 7 machine and wants to share a printer between the machines is buy either a network printer (a printer with a Ethernet jack on it and printer drives for both Windows 7 and OS X), or a small network printer server with an Ethernet jack, a USB port and a jack for the wall wart power supply. If you already have multiple USB ink jet printer(s), use one per machine. Don't stress out over this.

OK, here we go down the rabbit hole…

Mapping the machines to each other as network drives.

On the Macintosh side, select your Finder by just clicking on the desktop. Now press Command +K to bring up the Connect to Server dialog box.



Type in  HYPERLINK "smb://xxx.xxx.x.xx/"smb://111.222.3.44/ Substitute your Windows 7's IP address for that fake one. Finally press Connect.

Where do you find your Windows 7 machine's IP address? You have to dig for it.

Click on your Start Menu and go to All Programs.

Click on Accessories

Click on Command Prompt.

Up comes a window with a black background and text in white. Yup, you've returned to Windows' DOS roots.



The command you enter here is ipconfig. Press the Enter key and you'll see a half-screen of data. What do you want?



Windows IP Configuration


Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : gateway.2wire.net
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . :
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 111.222.3.44
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . :
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

Tunnel adapter isatap.gateway.2wire.net:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : gateway.2wire.net

Tunnel adapter Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . :
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . :
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : ::

You want the numerical string to the right of the IPV4 address. Yours will be different, and no, that's not my IP address.

You should see a brief  dialog box about setting up the connection. Next you see a box asking your which volume you want to connect to. In my case, I can only connect to my own user's volume.



You're in business.

As for connecting to your Macintosh from your Windows 7 machine, press Win+E to bring up the Windows Explorer. The Windows Key, emblazoned with the 4-panel Windows flag, lies next to your Alt keys on your Windows keyboard.



You'll see the menu across the top of Windows Explorer. Note the item Map Network Drive. Click on it and you'll see the dialog box for actually mapping the network drive.



First enter two backslashes, followed by the IPV4 address of your Macintosh. Enter another backslash followed by the name of your user directory.

In Windows, use the backslash, not the forward slash. The forward slash is for UNIX-based systems, like OS X and Linux. Windows appropriated the backlash (\) as its separator character.

Now how do you find out your Mac's Ipv4 address? Just go to the Apple menu and click on the first item About This Mac.

Now click on More Info.... This brings up the System Profiler. You see a contents list on the left-hand side with detailed information for each item on the right-hand side. Click on Network to see a list of active services, one of which is Built-In Ethernet. The Ipv4 Address is clearly displayed. No need to go to a command prompt.

As for your user directory name, look at the sidebar of the Finder. The icon of your user directory is a house and right next to it is the name you enter after the backslash.



Click on Finish and you're done.

Printing from Windows 7 to a Macintosh-connected printer

Printing from Windows 7 to OS X 10.6.2 has caused a lot of grief. Google the question “printing from Windows 7 to OS X 10.6.2” and you will see several pages of answers.

I Googled and Googled, trying various solutions to no avail. This one worked for me. I borrowed most of it from Umesh P of Microsoft, so Umesh deserves 90% of the credit.

Click on  your Start Menu
Click on Control Panel
Click on the Hardware and Sound control panel


Click on Devices and Printers. You do not want add a device.
You will see a windows with your devices (hard drives) and your printers.
Click on the item in the menu bar Add A Printer.
You now see a windows with two choices: Add a Local Printer and Add a Network Printer. This will seem counter intuitive, but you want to choose Add a Local Printer.
Select Create a New Port.
Select Local Port as the type of port to create.



Click Next. This is the heart of the matter.



You want to enter \\[IP Address of the host computer]\[The Share Name of the printer]



Then click Next
Choose the correct driver in the driver list. You want a color Postscript printer. Doesn't matter whether it's laser or inkjet.
Finish the installation.

Okay, you still have questions. Let me answer them one at a time.

Q. What is the “IP Address of the host computer”?
A; That's the Ipv4 address of your Macintosh. Go to the Apple Menu, click on About This Mac, click on the More Info... button, click on Network in the left hand column and look for Built-In Ethernet in the right-hand panel.

Q: What is the Share Name of my Macintosh printer?
A: Go to the Print & Fax Preference Pane of System Preferences on your Macintosh.  Look at the list of printer and scanners. Click on the printer you want to share.

As you see from the illustration, my shared printer is Canon iP4300.



Its share name is just that: Canon iP4300. Don't worry if your printer's name has a space in the middle. You do not need to insert an underscore between the words. I tried it and got an error message. I took out the underscore and the printer worked.

Don't forget to check the box for Share this printer on the network

Q: What printer driver should I choose?
A: A color Postscript printer, either laser or inkjet. You can tell it's a Postscript printer because it has PS at the end of the name.

You DO NOT want to choose the Windows' printer driver. You want a Postscript driver. An HP Colorjet PS printer will do fine.

Second, the observations

Windows 7 is a better operating system than Windows XP. I never tried Vista due to its mediocre reviews.  I don't think it's superior to OS X 10.6.2 on first impression.

It struck me that Windows 7 wants to be the ONLY operating system you use. You can set up a Home Network, but it only works with Windows 7, not with Windows XP or Vista.  I couldn't print to a Windows 7 connected printer from my Macintosh. For what it's worth, Windows 7 did not like Linux, at least not Ubuntu Linux. Microsoft sees Ubuntu as its real competitor in years to come. Does Ford see BMW as a competitor, or does it look at Toyota & Nissan & Kia & Hyundai?

I bought this Windows 7 computer through Costco. It cost me $500. The price didn't attract me as much as the tower configuration. A lot of Mac users want a simple mini-tower to mount additional hard drives and add-in cards for such things as eSATA, a high-speed protocol for external hard drives. They do not want to spend upwards of $2500 on a Mac Pro.

Last Thought:

I want to thank Umesh P of Microsoft Technical Support for his posted solution to printing from a Windows 7 machine to a Macintosh.

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