MacBook auto discovers windows machines network?

lloydsj · 26 Jun 2008 at 14:20

Hi,

At home I have an XP machine connected to my belkin router on a static IP address. I have a few shares on it which I use on my macbook using the samba: method. However, everytime i want to use these shares i need to use the 'connect to server' option in finder etc.

However, i was recently at a friends house and once my macbook had connected to their wireless it then discovered the machines they had connected on the network and allowed me to browse their shares etc. This happened as soon as i connected to their wireless, and had never connected to their machines before (or even knew what the machines were called).

How is this working? as i would like to make it do this on my network too. I've asked and apparently they havn't done anything special on their machines that they know of.

ringo747 · 26 Jun 2008 at 15:39

You can open up a shared volume on another machine and then add it to the login items for your username in the accounts preferences.

See this thread:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17884980

lloydsj · 26 Jun 2008 at 15:45

Yep, thats pretty much what i'm doing now (apart from adding it to my login items).

But what I want to know, is how my macbook is automatically discovering these machines at my friends house? when i've never even connected to them before.

Scythe · 26 Jun 2008 at 15:47

My mac mini on my network, just sees all the shares on my network, it just does it automatically for me?

lloydsj · 26 Jun 2008 at 19:05

so is that the norm and i've disabled something? or have you set something up to do that

Scythe · 26 Jun 2008 at 19:16

Nope, mine just seems to do it and the machines appear in the finder sidebar under Network IIRC.

Fillado · 26 Jun 2008 at 19:19

They automatically appear on mine too, but there are odd times when the other machines are on but they don't appear automatically

lloydsj · 27 Jun 2008 at 08:34

Hmm, it won't just be doing this at random.. but i can't figure out what it needs to see them auto

LordSplodge · 27 Jun 2008 at 10:29

My MacBook just auto discovers as well...

Johnz0r · 27 Jun 2008 at 12:58

LordSplodge said:
My MacBook just auto discovers as well...

My MBP does exactly the same, I love apple though because the Icon for the windows box sums up the operating system very well, decrepid and slow.

lloydsj · 27 Jun 2008 at 15:06

I've had a thought which im going to test later. My machines are all assigned static IP addresses, except for my wireless stuff (pretty much just my macbook) which is assigned via DHCP. I'm thinking that the macbook refers to the DHCP table on the router to find machines. Hence my static machines dont show up in there. Whereas at my friends house (and hopefully the same for you lot that its working for) you just get your router to hand out your machines an IP via DHCP and the macbook then finds them.

Sound plausable? i'll test it later tonight

Doug · 28 Jun 2008 at 01:25

None of my machines have ever auto-discovered, I have everything set up with static IPs.

Beginning to see a pattern here.

lloydsj · 28 Jun 2008 at 18:22

aye not tested it yet but sounds like im right

Scythe · 28 Jun 2008 at 18:28

No pattern here, my Mac & every device on my network is static IP.

Doug · 28 Jun 2008 at 23:15

Aye, just set up a share on the other Mac and it popped up straight away.

I'll give it another go with a windows box, at some point.

Whiskas · 29 Jun 2008 at 00:35

OS X uses Bonjour (also called ZeroConf) for auto-discovery and this is largely dependent on DNS.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/bonjour.html