Enabling IPv6 in Windows 7
 

This post is probably more of a rant than anything. Basically, I want to network my (rather aging) G5 iMAC with an HP machine running Windows 7. This is going to be tricky enough in that I know naff all about networking.

However, I can't even get over the first hurdle. I need to create a home group on the HP but it won't let me as IPv6 isn't enabled. Can I find a simple check box 'enable IPv6'? Can I heck. The troubleshooting section was no use whatsoever so started googling. Plenty of others have had the same issue and the resolutions seem to involve dabbling about in registries and stuff.

I'm not confident to go into that sort of depth but maybe I'll have to. I'm just having a bitch. Why can't I simply check a box on a function that is so vital? Grrrr...

Anyway, Happy New Year!

Support for IPv6 in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7

but beware - your adapter may NOT have the necessary drivers.

why do you need IPV6 on a home network?

the old Mac almost certainly won't have that capability anyway

Does 7 not use !Pv6 for home networking?
Edit: Yes, from my link

"HomeGroup in Windows 7 is a new way for computers on home networks to associate with each other and to let family members share documents, pictures, music, videos, and printers. HomeGroup relies on IPv6 connectivity and the Windows Peer-to-Peer Networking Platform on computers running Windows 7 on a single-subnet home network."

Milo, I don't know!! It's just I that I would like to transfer files between my Mac and the HP via ethernet.

I found this video, so started following it:


I came unstuck at about 50 secs in when the set-up told me I need to enable IPv6 to form the Homegroup. I haven't even watched the rest of the video as I saw little point. Even if I did manage to enable IPv6 I have my doubts whether the remainder will work, particularly as the poor old mac is still on 10.3.9. I basically just use it for some imaging work which it does reasonably ok.

There is a large drive on the HP which I would like to use as a back-up for the Mac. I just want a straightforward connection between the two.

Thanks!

You can do that without IPv6, just using IPv4. Don't add the IPv6 to your life if you don't have to... its only going to come back and bite you in the backside when you're trying to troubleshoot some unrelated problem down the line.

Look in System Preferences and Sharing on the Mac.... you'll find a number of options in there that you could use to get your PC to connect to your Mac (e.g. FTP, SMB).

Alternativley, if you want to spend a bit of cash (and assuming its compatible with the version of OS X and non-intel processor running on your G5), take a look at Thursby DAVE. Install that on your Mac and you can connect to Windows shares as if you were a PC. Time-limited demo version available I believe.

Pelikal

Ignore the home group, just use Windows networking through a workgroup as you would with any previous PC. Ignore the "Home Group" altogther
From you should be able to simply enable SMB on the Mac and log onto the windows shared network (Mixture will know more than I about that)

Been a while since I've used a non-intel Mac, older versions of OS X were a bit thin on features and could be a bit temperamental (OS X doesn't really start to shine until you start getting into the Intel versions Apple released later), so I hope I'm not out of touch on what's feasible.

Mixture, thanks, I'll explore the other avenues. This HP machine is new to me (a gift from a friend who has upgraded) and other than a slightly dodgy display is working well. Don't want to fcuk anything up just yet. It may be a while before I post back as it looks like I have some homework to do.

Yup, the processor is not Intel on the Mac. Thanks again!

Edit: Milo, missed your post. Getting an idea of how to take this further now.

this may help, though it doesn't deal with WIN7
it should indicate what you need to do on the Mac

Sharing files between a Windows XP PC and a Mac running OS 10.3.x

from looking at other websites it does appear that the process can be very buggy...

On older versions of OS X yep, the implementation wasn't the best.

Works better now a days, although I'm quite fond of Thusrby DAVE too.

Milo, thanks for link. I have an old Tosh running XP Pro so may experiment on that first, bit tired now. Cheers!

Maybe getting there....
 

....dunno really. Made a connection between the G5 and the Tosh based on the link that Milo posted. I have issues with namings, passwords, workgroups, shared folders, IP addresses and stuff. I'm deliberately not going into detail as I'm unsure what could be amiss. However, I have at least made a connection!

I've never networked 2 computers.

I guess starting off networking a Mac and a Windows job with different operating systems isn't the brightest move. Still, it's what I need to do. If you fine people don't mind, I would like to keep this thread fairly active till I get a result. I'm trying to sort out the bugs as I go along but I may need some further assistance! Thanks.

If you're coming at it from a non-IT perspective, it certainly looks like an insurmountable challenge. However from an IT perspective its one of the simpler projects in life, so its not an unrealistic challenge to set yourself. Particularly as once you've achieved it, it is a particularly rewarding skill to master because of the multitude of uses and freedom of being able to share files over the network without fumbling around with USB sticks, CD burning and all that nonsense.

Yes, the old version of OS X to Windows was perhaps not the greatest starting place. But wrap your head around that and you'll find newer OS X to Windows or Windows to Windows a doddle.

Carry on posting as long as you like. I'll try (hopefully others too !) to help if I can figure out where you're going wrong, but I'm also a firm believer in getting your hands dirty in order to learn stuff..... I never had any formal training in IT, just bit by bit you learn stuff as you go along (and learn from your mistakes too). You never stop learning in IT... both because of the ever changing nature of it, and also because you find yourself keen to learn how to do stuff you already know better and more efficiently.

Right... that's enough waffle from me. You should be getting back to your file sharing !

There appear to be basically two scenarios:

(1) It Just Works (TM) completely by magic with total amount of effort being zero

(2) You faff around for hours, days, weeks, and never quite get it to behave in a sensible fashion

Sometimes you have to set up and configure some stuff, following simple instructions, after which it all works as expected, but this is not a common scenario! Suggest buying a Windows server and some Windows clients of the right matching operating system to achieve this. But working by magic, for reasons you don't understand, or not working at all, for reasons you don't understand, are both rather more common.

Oh for gods sake ! :rolleyes:

Mixture, thank you for your generous words of encouragement. I know that if I crack this, I will be quite satisfied with myself. On the face of it, it does seem a simple task but I am on unfamiliar ground.

I have an overall picture of the set-up now and roughly know where the 'fiddly bits' hang out. The next issue to solve is the password one. I'm sure the Mac is connecting to the Tosh and is seeing the workgroup but it is requesting a password. I'm not sure what password though as I don't recall setting a password for the workgroup when it was created. My Mac account password doesn't seem to work so I'll try and retrace my steps later. It is nice to know I am welcome back here if I really get stuck. I'll also take shots of any windows and post these as well.

Gertrude the Wombat, when I was a pre-press chap in print with Mac and Windows servers all over the shop connected to a myriad of devices I relied on Magic because frankly I didn't have much of a clue as to how it all fitted together! I realise now that I should have taken more notice of the networking engineers, I could have learned a lot from them.

Thanks again for responses.

Password won't be for the workgroup, but for the account on the computer. You might need to enter the username in the format "workgroup\username" (replacing both those with the actual names for the workgroup and username).

From memory, by default the workgroup name is the computer name you gave the computer.

Mixture, thanks. I've tried connecting using my admin name on the Tosh. That didn't work. The workgroup name is actually 'workgroup'. I might go through the procedure again just to get familiar with these.

Perhaps I should be using my Mac account password. However, I've messed up somewhere with that. I thought it was my name, which is 6 characters long (well, it was the last time I checked!). However, the field indicates it's 7 characters. I need to resolve this but I can't change the password.

I'll be out for a few hours but will double check what I've done so far later. However, I have connected at least!

Well, going around in circles a bit. I'm trying to reset my Mac admin. account password (forgotten the original) using the original install disk and it doesn't seem to work. I need to sort this out first! Getting all messed up with keychains which I never bothered with.

I seem to have gone off at a tangent from my original posting in that for the time being at least this has nothing to do with enabling IPv6 in Windows7. I'm using my old Toshiba running XP Pro to practice networking which could then be useful in getting hooked up to the HP running Windows7.

Hmmm....

Forget IPV6 in toto, ditto homegroups.

SD

On older versions of OS X, its actually quite easy.

Did you try the methods out there that involve booting into single user mode and doing some black screen magic ? :cool:

Mixture:
Ah right, ok, back to Black Magic mode. Well, the latest is I've totally screwed up the log in. I created a 2nd account and logged in with that. Now I can't log in with the admin. which before was automatic but now requires a password.:ugh::ugh:

Pelikal,

Don't blame me if this causes you problems, but on OS X 10.3 it goes something like this ....

1/ Turn off computer
2/ Turn on whilst holding down apple and s
3/ Once it's all booted and you're on a black screen type /sbin/mount -uw /
4/ Type/sbin/SystemStarter
5/ Type passwd XXXXXX where XXXXX is the username of your admin account. Enter desired new password when prompted.
6/ Type reboot

If you don't know the username, before step 5, type :
nireport . /users name realname and use the value from the first column

Job done.

and in case you need to reset the Keychain

Resetting your keychain in Mac OS X

Point to consider is that - as far as I can remember - to log onto a shared drive on a windows PC from a Mac, the Mac needs to be logged in with a user name / password which also exists as a user on the PC, and the password cannot be blank . i.e. there HAS to be a password on the account

Wot they said.

1. Ignore IPv6. Lots of stuff can't work with it yet, and it's another complication you don't need.

2. Avoid Homegroups. I had a nasty experience with one some years ago. It scrambled my computer and very nearly lost all my "stuff" - it locked all the hard drives it could find. Just use Workgroup.

3. It's exactly as Gertrude says: sometimes it just works, and sometimes it doesn't. I managed to network my Windows PC and laptop and a Linux PC that I used out in the "workshop". I think Mac is like Linux - you have to dabble with Samba and geekspeak stuff to set it up, but it does then work.

Well, it is BSD behind the GUI.... so you're in the ballpark in terms of concepts. :cool:

Mixture, sorry my last post contained a touch of frustration.

Ok, went into black screen. Got:

If you want to make modifications to files, run /sbin/fsck -y and then /sbin/mount -uw which I did.

I did your step 4 /sbin/SystemStarter

I then had the message: Waiting for Apple File Service about 25 times, followed by Startup complete.

Step 5 had no effect, just localhost:/ root#

Then did reboot, so no harm done. Any further thoughts on the password reset? As I stated, I have my original install disks which I purchased.

I wasn't expecting this detour from my original aim but perhaps it will make me careful with passwords and namings. Thank you for your patience!

Hmm... ok, there are various options for that step depending on your version of OS X.... guess I gave you the wrong one.... but no harm done. I'll go back to the drawing board.

I'll try to do some research and see. When the install disk boots up, on the very first screen, do you see any menus ? (drop down type, like the usual file edit etc. ones you see on OSX). Is there any option in those menus that looks like password reset ?

Password sorted
 

Booted again with the install disk and used the reset password option and it worked. I think when I tried it before I didn't save it. Anyhow, done. Quite simple actually!:hmm:

Now, what was it I was trying to achieve? Oh, yeah, something about file sharing between my Mac and 2 PCs.

Consensus is I forget IPv6. I think I'll delete the workgroup stuff on the Tosh, that just confused me and I'll start again. Somewhere.


Milo, thanks, note taken.

In windows 7 use the WORK NETWORK option to set it up, providing the other 2 are live on the router already it should work like a charm.................then again..

My 2p:

- forget IPv6 but do NOT disable it from the network stack (as Microsoft places great faith in it and uses it in a lot of internal communication for processes which get their knickers in a twist if protocols are missing). You may need to kow about IPv6 shortly, but it's looking more and more like you'd only ever need it at the router level rather than on a home network.

- homegroup is fine, and is basically akin to "domain networking for dummies". It's certainly got just as many quirks and workarounds as workgroup computing, and there's a lot of FUD spread on threads such as this as to the effects of something people don't know too much about. e.g. Keef's drive locking would only be related to permissions needing resetting at the root, which is the same for any Windows box in certain aspects.

".....as far as I can remember - to log onto a shared drive on a windows PC from a Mac, the Mac needs to be logged in with a user name / password which also exists as a user on the PC, and the password cannot be blank . i.e. there HAS to be a password on the account"

That is correct.

Mac

rm -rf /

Account/Login password again.
 

I must be being really thick here. I thought I had reset my password. When I login to the Mac on start-up, I use the new password which is 6 characters long.

When I view account information, the password field indicates 7characters for that account. Are these passwords different? Thought I had this sorted. Thanks.

Found an old tech document for OS X 10.2 that said ....

Mixture, thanks for that, I thought I was going totally bonkers. So I guess there is a another reason why I can't connect properly to the Tosh, more to explore.

I assume that user name / password combo are a valid account on the PC?

Milo, thanks, I need to revisit all of that. I have a feeling I've added an unwanted complication somewhere. No doubt I'll be back! Cheers.

Well I'm back...SOME SUCCESS!!

I can now see my entire (extremely messy) Mac desktop on the Toshiba (XP Pro).

On the Tosh, I went Start ˃ My Network Places ˃ Entire Network ˃ Microsoft Windows Network and I saw Workgroup. So I double-clicked on that and to my surprise I saw Mac OSX (my-computer). A few clicks and there I was! So I can now copy files to the Mac.

Thing is I still can't log into the workgroup from the Mac which is what I would like to do.

I go Connect to Server.

Server Address:

smb://(Tosh IP address)

Click Connect, I get:

SMB/CIFS Filesystem Authentification

Enter username and password for (ME):

Workgroup/Domain:
WORKGROUP

Username:
This is where I'm confused. It comes up automatically with the Tosh computer/system name which is different to my account name. The account I'm using on the Tosh is Administrator with a simple password.

Password:
The password which I login as Administrator on start-up.

The error msg I get on the Mac is:

The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "smb://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" could not be read or written. (error code -36).

I know to an extent this has already been covered by previous replies but I'm trying to consolidate it.

I'm actually still unsure whether I should be using the Macs user details or the Tosh user details! I guess it doesn't really matter that I can't get into the PC from the Mac as least I can copy files to the Mac from the Tosh which was the idea. I would like to know what I was doing wrong though.

Is there another way of connecting to the PC? ie I'm using smb://etc etc.

When I get the files sorted out on the Mac I can then think about transferring them to the HP (Windows7).

Sorry about the long-winded post and hope I've made it clear where I am now. Thanks for all the assistance as I have partially fulfilled my aim!:ok:

Unlike a homegroup (or Windows server domain) you don't "log in to a workgroup" per se, as it's not a shared set of services at all other than for computer browsing purposes (which in previous posts on the subject I pointed out has been broken/depracated since 1995 anyway as the browse-mastering "byte" in Windows 95 should have been a "long", and hence resulted in many truncated browse lists in larger networks with Win95).

In workgroups, therefore, your ability (or otherwise) to log into a 'server' is dictated solely by the permissions set on the serving server.

Irrespective of any simplification performed by some structures (such as domains, homegroups, or 3rd party Samba-esque services), ALL Windows (CIFS/SMB)-based services are logged into via the construct:

"device\username" (without quotes, and ensuring you're using the correct backslash rather than forwardslash).

"device" in a workgroup is the NetBIOS name of the PC. e.g. "Tosh-PC" (or whatever you're using). Hence in that example your username would be "tosh-pc\administrator" (again without quotes).

Definitely, as mentioned above, use the credentials of the serving computer, as that's how the resource has been secured. Your PC has no knowledge of your Mac in this instance so how would it ever be able to discern between it's username being valid or invalid?
SMB = Server Message Block (aka CIFS - Common Internet File System) - it's the Microsoft originated protocol for file operations, so you're using the right thing.