Does anyone know how I can send a file from a Vista PC to an iMac using a
wireless network?

For example, let's say I have a music file on my laptop, which connects to
the router via wireless. My housemate has an iMac on the same network,
connected to the router with an ethernet cable. I can't see his computer on
the network in Vista, so how do I send him the file?

Andrew Browne wrote:
Does anyone know how I can send a file from a Vista PC to an iMac
using a wireless network?

For example, let's say I have a music file on my laptop, which
connects to the router via wireless. My housemate has an iMac on the
same network, connected to the router with an ethernet cable. I
can't see his computer on the network in Vista, so how do I send him
the file?

One of you will need to enable file sharing. If you think of it like this,
sending a file is like throwing it, and they therefore need to have a file
share (a folder that is available on the network) ready to 'catch' it.

To enable file sharing with Windows on the mac (assumes 10.5.x version of
Mac OS) your friend will need to do the following:

1. Open system preferences

2. Open Sharing. Note the "computer name" of the mac. You'll want this
later. If it's something long like (for example) "Robert's brand new MacBook
Pro he spent too much money on really" then consider changing it to
something simple like "RobsMBP". Any network name with spaces in it will
complicate matters.

3. Tick "File Sharing" and in the file sharing panel select Options.

4. Tick "Share files and folders using SMB" and ensure that a tick is placed
by the user's account. They'll need to supply their password at this point,
if asked for it.

5. Click "Done".

6. Hopefully you can now access their computer by going to the start menu
and typing "\\" followed by the computer name of their Mac, for example
\\robsmbp.

7. You may need to supply a username and password at this point, which will
be the mac user's username and password, as you are asking their computer
for permission to do stuff at this point. Whether they choose to share this
with you, or set up another account on the mac purely to allow you to
exchange files without giving up their account details is up to them. Unless
you are _very_ good friends, I'd strongly suggest it though.

I know this seems like a lot of effort, mostly because it is. It's about the
same amount of work to share between two windows machines or two macs
though, thats just how life is. Much of the process I mention above is
purely laying the ground out ready to exchange files and once this is done
the first time you can just jump to step #6 in my list above and get on with
it in the future.

If your files are large, you'll soon discover why smart businesses haven't
yet ripped all that copper network cable out of their walls and replaced it
with wireless networking completely - if this is the case then consider
using a USB drive to exchange files... not as cool but for large files,
probably a bit quicker than wireless!