Matt Horn fixed his slow SMB file sharing browsing with a recent tip about creating a kerberos file with a DNS setting. Horn reports:

I have been following the Mac SMB sharing problems for a while and found Kyle Rabe's solution to resolve the problem for me. I did a packet capture for communications between my MBP running OS X 10.6.4 64-bit and noticed the same DNS lookups for _kerberos.server.domain.local. Once I created the /Library/Preferences/edu.mit.Kerberos file my total connection time went from about 50 seconds to 5 seconds. I thought I would provide some positive feedback and thank Kyle for his suggested solution.

Nick Atalla is another reader reporting a problem syncing iPad and Exchange Server. He also reports another problem, where messages delted in Outlook remain on the iPad:

I've run into the same problem that Katrina Thomas reported in your blog. I'm running Outlook 2010 on my laptop and syncing my iPad with my domain Exchange service - Exchange 2010. It appears that once I've opened/replied to an email message on my client, before a sync could take place with my iPad, I never see the message on my iPad. I can't be sure that this is always the case - I'm going to try and follow more closely.

I've also found that when I delete a message in Outlook, the message remains on the iPad. When I try and delete the message on the iPad, I get a message on the iPad that the action could not be completed.

I'm hoping this isn't what happens on my iPhone - I just ordered a new iPhone 4G. Also hope that the issue around sync go away when the iPad is updated with iOS 4. I love the iPad -- but it has to work properly with Exchange.

If you've seen this

Brian Beck reports an annoying problem with duplicate email sent from iPhones through Exchange Server:

If my boss responds to or sends out an email to anyone at our company, they get several copies of the same email. Every time he sends an email from his phone, 7 copies of the same message are sent to the same person over an hour's time.

If you've seen this

James Linck's email doesn't get delivered through Exchange:

You said if you've tried Apple's fix for the Exchange email problems on the iPhone and it didn't work, let you know. Well, I did and it doesn't work. Very often (although I have no idea when or why it will occur) my e-mail simply stops getting delivered. It doesn't stay in my outbox, go to sent mail or any other folder and never gets to the recipient. You can imagine the problems this causes. I won't notice it, will have replied to many people, then I'll realize that e-mail isn't working. I cannot recall which emails I sent and they are gone!

If you've seen this problem

Softhing has released free update for Entourage Exchange Accounts Optimizer. Entourage Exchange Accounts Optimizer automatically moves old mail an Exchange account to a replicated structure within Entourage. The new Version 1.8 is twice as fast as the previous version, according to the company, and is fully compatible with Snow Leopard (version 10.6.3 and later). There's now a log that can show session information, and a feature that let's you move forward in 10-day increments with the Option key and 50 days with the Command key. Entourage Exchange Accounts Optimizer 1.8 is available for direct download here.

LaCie has shipped the 5big Storage Server, a network-attached-storage device that uses the AFP protocol to serve Mac clients, as well as SMB and NFS. LaCie says it is designed to serve or 25 to 100 PC, Mac, or Linux workstations with up to 10 terabytes of storage capacity. The 5big Storage Server runs Microsoft Storage Server 2008 Standard Edition, powered by a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor.

Besides AFP, other Mac-specific features include support for Time Machine and Spotlight. The unit bears a resemblance to the HAL 9000, except the red "eye" is blue. (We assume it will open the iPod bay doors when asked...)

John Borges found that using a USB audio adapter works as a workaround to the problem of Mac speakers not working in Boot Camp:

I had to help a friend with a 2009 iMac with the same problem, he installed Boot Camp just to play Starcraft II and his audio out didn't work in Windows 7. No updated Realtek drivers worked, and unfortunately he did not have an optical input on his amplified speakers.

I did find a relatively cheap and elegant solution. I had a 10-year-old SoundBlaster Live! USB audio adapter. I used it on my Mac Pro before to get my old unamplified microphone to work. It also functions as a very good audio output device for OS X......Read entire story here

Patrick Timms shared a DNS fix for an Active Directory authentication problem with .local domains. His article describes what is happening and provides a StartupItem shell script:

This is a general post aimed at everyone who has a .local domain and is still frustrated with the Active Directory authentication issue on Snow Leopard, i.e. where at least 50 percent of the time the Macs will fail to authenticate AD users following a reboot and display "This domain is not responding" in Accounts -> Login Options. I haven't seen any other definitive fixes for this problem yet, so I thought I'd post something that works 100 percent for us.

The problem, as I understand it, comes down to Apple's buggy Multicast DNS Responder implementation (the processes "mDNSResponder" and "mDNSResponderHelper"), whereby .local domains conflict with the Bonjour service and the KDC(s) for the Windows domain can't be resolved, causing authentication to fail. None of the multitude of "fixes" I've seen posted so far have had much success at my workplace.......Read entire story here

Shaun Runham reports no success with the Apple workaround for Snow Leopard clients bound to AD getting stuck in the screen saver:

I tried this one (sadly didn't work) and also another tip (found via Google) is to kill the DirectoryService every 10 minutes. This didn't work either. It doesn't happen every time but most of the time after my lunch hour. I will keep looking and will hopefully find the solution one day. Then (at long last) I will be able to go to lunch and not have to power off the Mac to be able to login with any AD account.

Note that we also have this suggestion from last month. If you've tried it

Charles Powell has a thought as to why using server:139 to log on to a SAMBA share works for some people:

This worked for me as well with OS X 6.4. I could connect as other users but not as myself. I guess changing the port designation cleared the prior credentials.

What do you think?

Adriana Blandford says that the lastest version of the Juniper SSL VPN Mac client doesn't work, as previously reported.

I have had exactly the same problem that Terence reports. We are now on the current version 6.5R4, and I am still having tunneling issues. When connected to the VPN, cannot access the Internet or network at all. Disconnecting allows me to access the Internet, AND the network.

If you've seen this problem

Thursby Software released ADmitMac 5.1 and DAVE 8.1, updates to its Mac OS X software for integrating Macs into Windows networks. DAVE 5.1 provides two way file and print sharing with Windows, including support for accessing Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) systems. It implements SMB, but doesn't have the problems of Mac OS X's built in SMB support. ADmitMac 5.1 is an Active Directory client for Mac OS X that also includes the functionality of DAVE.

New features include what Thursby calls "broader" support for DFS and better network volume integration for popular Mac applications such as Adobe's Creative Suite and Apple Final Cut Pro. ADmitMac 5.1 adds "deeper" support for Active Directory Group Policy Objects (GPO) with Apple's Workgroup Manager (WGM) for identity and access management from a Mac, as well as from Windows PCs.

If you've used these new versions Or, post a note at our ADmitMac discussion forum.

Luis Antezana has an explanation of why people see all Exchange mail marked as read on iPads and iPhones:

I've seen this happen, too, but the explanation seems pretty straightforward. iPad always has an e-mail selected in its mail app, which is marked as read. If your iPad is set to automatically check for new mail and you're viewing and deleting mail from another location.......Read entire story here

Katrina Thomas found some information about a problem with iPad and Exchange, where icons for replied and forwarded messages don't sync. Thomas found the problem also occurs with iPhone. She also found some information pointing to a technical problem with the way Apple's software communicates with Exchange:

I have reproduced this problem with the iPhone and Exchange 2003. I had to do some research on this a while back and this is what I found. This is from an article from Windows IT Pro......Read entire story here

Today, CodeWeavers released CrossOver 9.1 and CrossOver Games 9.1, its two products for running Windows applications directly in Mac OS X and in Linux, without the use of a Windows OS. The new versions improved support of some Windows business software and add support for more games. The updates also include a newly updated underlying engine, the open source Wine 1.2, which has a long list of changes and bug fixes. CrossOver is focused on running business applications. CrossOver Games is optimized for running Windows games in Mac OS X and Linux.

CrossOver Games 9.1 adds support for several games previously not supported, including StarCraft II, Star Trek Online, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, and Alien Swarm.......Read entire story here

Along with updated desktop Macs and a new display, Apple yesterday release a new Magic Trackpad, a stand-alone, oversized, wireless navigation device that can replace a mouse. Similar to the trackpad on Apple notebooks, the Magic Trackpad uses finger gestures for navigation, scrolling, panning, zooming, and other functions.

Apple also released Windows drivers for Magic Trackpad for use with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 when a Mac is booted with Boot Camp. There's a version of the drivers for 32-bit Windows and another for 64-bit Windows. The Trackpad does not work with non-Apple computers. It is not known at this point if the Magic Trackpad will work with Windows running virtual machines. As of yesterday, Neither VMware nor Parallels had released or announced updates to their "tools" drivers.

If you've used a Magic Trackpad with Windows

Group Logic has released ExtremeZ-IP 7.0, a major update for the AFP file and printer server for Windows hosts serving Mac clients. The update adds several dozen new features, performance and security enhancements, and bug fixes. A new option enables Macs to work with Microsoft's Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) Service, which enables Mac users to access previous versions of files from a Windows server........Read entire story here

Chris Thompson provided a way get a workaround for slow SMB connects to be retained through a report: edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file.

The sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0 tip worked for me. I found all these posts interesting and helpful as I have been looking for a fix for the slow Windows fileshare browsing issue for quite a while! I will probably try the Windows server registry hack as well. To make the setting "stick" through a reboot, you need to edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file by adding net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0 to it.........Read entire story here

TIP: DNS fix for iPhone iOS4 error in Exchange inbox

David Martin confirmed a tip for fixing the problem with iOS4 for iPhone that produces an error in an Exchange inbox:

This works and is the resolution if you are looking up a local DNS name on a windows network that has .local as the domain extension. I have xxx.local and my exchange system uses the external dns name of office.xxx.com.au when I had a CNAME in the DNS for office.xxx.com.au pointing to the xxx.local the email reader would not connect to the server. I changed the CNAME to an A using the IP address, and presto, the local resolution now works.

James Miller sees email from Exchange Server all marked as "read" on his iPhone 4. The problem was previously reported with the iPad. Miller reports:

I am using Gmail on my iphone4 and have it set up per Google's instructions to use the "Exchange Server" option. Sometimes emails in my "all mail" folder show up as read when I know I haven't read them on my iphone4 or my computer. Why is this happening?

If you've seen this problem with an iPad or iPhone

Later this month, Centrify will offer Centrify Express, as set of free portions of its Centrify Suite Active Directory integration tools for Mac OS X and Unix/Linux clients. The main piece is DirectControl Express for adding Macs and Unix/Linux to Active Directory. Centrify will also offer DirectManage Express, a free version of new product not yet offered, that will automate analysis and deployment of AD integration. Centrify Express will include "Centrify-enabled" versions of Samba, Kerberos, and OpenSSH to work with the Express software......Read entire story here

Gunno Ivansson added to the article DNS, kerberos, Active Directory, and slow SMB browsing, with a suggestion:

We had to create two DNS records to make it work, a _kerberos-master._udp.domain-name.local record, but also a _kerberos-master._tcp.domain-name.local record.

If you've tried this approach

A reader in our Mac OS X Server forum can't get his Windows clients running Outlook to connect to Mac OS X Server's mail server:

I am trying to get some of the PCs that we have on our network with Outlook 2007 to connect to our OS X 10.6 Server and the mail component. I am having a hell of a time trying to get it to work...

If you can help, please post a response in our forums.

Ryan Palamara responded to TIP: folder names with periods on server show up empty, with a reminder about accessing servers using Microsoft Distributed File System (DFS) systems:

One thing to make note of is that OS X will not work with DFS setup on a Windows server. If you have a mac and browse to a DFS share, you will see the folders, but they will all be empty. You will have to find the true UNC path of the share and browse to it that way.

We would add that there are some third-party solutions that give Macs access to DFS, including Thursby Software's ADmitMac and Group Logic's ExtremeZ-IP.

Justin Montgomery responded to previous reports of Windows networking not working in a VMware virtual machine:

I had this problem too but with VMware Fusion 3, Windows 7 on Leopard. Turned out it was my Norton firewall on Mac that was blocking it because once I disabled it and reset the adapter everything worked. Norton must be blocking something that VMware needs and I just haven't found out what yet.

Jelmer Jaarsma in Amsterdam found a server-side solution to slow SMB browsing in Active Directory, and commented on the article "DNS/kerberos setting workaround for slow SMB browsing:"

I would like to comment on the articles that mention switching off DNS fallback to fix slow connections to SMB. I've run into similar problems, but solved them in a different way. First of all, Kyle says that using Wireshark, he saw mDNS requests being made to the local multicast address. As far as I know that request should have been preceded by a regular DNS TXT lookup on the same record (that's what I've seen in my environment anyway). If not, have a look at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3473 for resolving .local domains........Read entire story here

Apple's new ActiveSync profile for iOS 4 for iPhone and iPod Touch may -- or may not -- fix the slow syncing with Exchange and/or server slowdown. Scott Hutchinson said it doesn't for him:

Sadly, this fix does not work and iOS4 has totally bricked my 3G as far as work email goes.

Jacob Pyle had better luck:

I had this issue with an Exchange 2007 server. The new profile seems to have fixed it. I hope it's included by default in an upcoming iOS4 release.

If you've seen tried Apple's fix

Craig Pepper reports on Microsoft's fix for the Entourage problem of not receiving email messages with a plus (+) sign in the subject:

We tried the Microsoft fix, which fixed the problem for a short time but then came back. Upgrading Entourage to version 13 (the Web Services Edition) fixed the problem permanently for us.

If you've tried the Microsoft approach, or upgrading to Entourage WSE

Several readers responded to a report that updating the Cisco VPN Client for Mac to version 4.9.1(0180) fixes the Error 51 that people are reporting. Several readers also had some other thoughts. Matt Allaire reports:

I too was getting the error. I have OS 10.6.4 and had VPN client 4.9.01.100. Following your advice I got 4.9.01.0180 and it worked perfectly.

Gustav Petersson agrees, and had some other ideas:

Just some general comments on Cisco errors -51. At first vpnclient-darwin-4.9.01.0180-universal-k9.dmg is working noticable better than vpnclient-darwin-4.9.01.0100-universal-k9.dmg - they are both available from Cisco.

The error -51 is an error message telling us that the vpn-client can't see a network interface with an IP-address on it. I have noticed that you sometimes can workaround this by connecting the computer to a network. For example, using WiFi/Airport at home I sometimes get the error -51, if I connect my machine by cable it's fine even though my top priority connection is still AirPort. I've sometimes managed to get this workaround with iPhone and internet tethering as well. Other ways to get it working.......Read entire story here

Responding to a report last Friday, Brad Morris shared a Microsoft fix for the problem where Entourage doesn't receive email messages that contain a plus (+) sign in the subject:

The documented solution from Microsoft is to enable double escape characters in IIS on the Exchange Server. I ran into this when we deployed in 2008 and this solution resolved. There are security implications people should be aware of before implementing, but in our case we had no choice.

If you've tried this fix

Techno-Grafik Software has released iTaskX 2.6.2, project management software for Mac OS X that adds support for and integration with Microsoft Project 2010. iTaskX 2.5.2 supports Microsoft Project MMP, MS Project MPX, and MS Project XML file formats. It can exchange calendars, resources and data in over sixty task fields with Microsoft Project. iTaskX can also open and save OPML files, ICS (iCal) files, and text files (Tab or Comma delimited). The update is free to owners of iTaskX 2.

A reader in our forums answered the question how to stop deletion of email on the iPad when it is deleted from the Exchange Server. He suggests setting up the account as POP3.

In the MacWindows discussion forums, a reader says:

Our graphics designer connects to a PC in our office using remote desktop. However, he only gets a partial screen to work with. How can he get a full screen of the PC on his Mac?

If you have a suggestion or are seeing this problem, post a note here.

Rusty Myers confirmed a tip for changing Windows 7 settings to enable it to authenticate to Mac OS X Server:

I have a fresh install of Windows 7 and 10.6.3 OS X Server. I could not authenticate the local admin from the server through the SMB share, connecting via windows. This tip solved my issues. Just FYI, Thanks!

Michel posted a note in the forums seeking help with an Active Directory error message he's seeing:

I have a small problem with laptop snow leopard 10.6.3 or 10.6.4 and win 2003 AD. Network ok, attach manually to share folder or share printer ok with my administrator login, but snow leopard does not attach to AD. An AD plugin said "bad forest or domain". I have testing with uppercase, lowercase, .com or not, etc.

If you can help, please post a response here.

Apple has released a new ActiveSync profile for the iOS 4 operating system for iPhone and iPod Touch. The profile fixes a problem where iOS 4 devices experience slow syncing of mail, contacts, or calendars with Exchange server, or experience no syncing at all. Even worse, Apple said that the problem could cause Exchange Server to slow down.

The new ActiveSync profile increases the amount of time the iOS 4 device waits for Exchange Server to respond to sync requests. The default is 30 seconds, which causes the iOS 4 device to make repeated requests to sync with Exchange Server.

If you've seen this issue and tried Apple's fix

Related: iPhone/iPad and Exchange Tips and Reports.

In our iPhone and Exchange forum, Craig asks:

Does anyone know how to stop deletion of email on the iPad when it is deleted from the exchange server? I want to be able to keep the emails on the iPad even when it is deleted off the exchange server.

If you know the answer, post a reply to his message here in our forum.

Eric Pho is seeing a problem we reported (with suggested workarounds) over a year ago:

Connie Woodward is seeing kernel panics with the Cisco VPN client since updating to Mac OS X 10.6.4:

Gosh, my machine has crashed already 3 times today, and has been crashing several times daily while on Cisco VPN with software client 4.9.01.0180. Since I've gone to 10.6.x this has been a problem, but not near as frequently as sent I updated to 10.6.4. My machine only crashes when I'm connected on VPN. I can hardly use my machine for work any more. We use Cisco IPsec over UDP so from what I read the built in Mac VPN won't work with that only TCP, do you know differently?

Our IT department does not support Mac (I'm using my home machine to connect to work), so they are no use. I've tried re-installing the VPN client, etc.

If you've seen this problem

Tim Haley responded to the reader report that Mac OS X 10.6.4 update broke Cisco VPN:

Yes, I see the Error 51 failure of Cisco VPN every time I attempt to launch it since updating to 10.6.4. Re-installing the client did not seem to help.

However, it works just fine for Bob Crummett:

I am using Cisco's VPN Client 4.9.01.0180 with no problems in OS X 10.6.4 (iMac 27" i7)........Read entire story here

Yesterday, Group Logic released MassTransit HP 7.0 (formerly called MassTransit), a new version of the company's enterprise-level managed file transfer suite for Windows and Macintosh. The new version supports a new UDP-based protocol which the company says is up to 20 times faster than FTP-based solutions, and faster than other UDP-based products. MassTransit is also secure, while FTP is not.

Group Logic released a new, free server called MassTransit SFTP (short for secure file transfer protocol). Current versions of MassTransit, which have been peer-to-peer solutions, can now act as clients to MassTransit SFTP.

Dan Ball said the suggestion from earlier this week did not fix slow SMB file sharing in Snow Leopard:

Nope, this does not help with the issue. I already have DNS fallback to "no" on my OS X and it's still having the issue.

Brian Povlsen reports an Exchange problem with the new iOS4 for iPhone that produces an error in an Exchange inbox. The solution (for network administrators) is to use A records instead of CNAMEs in the DNS server:

Some individuals from the Apple Discussions forum said that they are getting the error "Server is unavailable" in their inbox on a Microsoft Exchange 2003 account. These accounts worked normally before the upgrade. Archilies has the solution: "I had the same issue. It appears that the mail client in iOS 4 does not like CNAMEs. I had to change our DNS zone to use A records instead of CNAMEs for our mail server." This is verified by other posters on the thread." The post about this can be found here.

If you've seen this problem

When viewing his Exchange email from his iPad, Mark McKenna sees all of them marked as "read:"

I'm using an iPad to access my work Exchange account. Setup took about two minutes and seems to work fine except all messages show up as "read" even when my work computer is turned off.

If you've seen this issue

Brett Bergerman used the smb://share:139 workaround, previously reported to get around SMB file sharing problems in Snow Leopard. However, he used it for a different SMB problem:

I was getting a different symptom in that my Mac, when connecting to my PC share, would take about 15-20 seconds to display the login prompt for the PC's credentials. The connection would then work fine. However, now that I have specified the TCP port in the Connect to Server URL (:139), I no longer have to wait for the prompt. Thank you very much for the tip - this fixes a very frustrating issue for me.

If you've seen this slow login prompt issue and have tried this workaround

Kyle Rabe offered another approach for fixing slow Mac SMB file sharing problems, but is asking for feedback. He believes that on his Macs, slow SMB file sharing is due to the Mac waiting for a response from a DNS server regarding. He created a kerberos file on a Mac and included the line the setting "dns_fallback = no." Rabe's report:

I've been following the MacWindows.com tips and workarounds regarding slow SMB connections from Snow Leopard to Windows Server 2008 for a while, and so far, the tips have not made a difference for me. I did some packet inspection using Wireshark, and I noticed that when I try to connect to an SMB share, my MacBook sends a request for a TXT DNS record that matches _kerberos.server.domain.local to the mDNS address (224.0.0.251). Unfortunately, it never receives a response, so it sits and waits for 45 seconds, repeating the request, before giving up........Read entire story here

Kent Gaskill commented on the previously reported tip to use sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0 to improve Mac OS X's SMB file sharing speed. He tested different settings on Leopard, and found that ack=0 was actually the slowest. The fastest was ack=1:

I have a small art department with five computers. Currently I have all iMacs, running OSX 10.4.11 (2 computers), 10.5.8, 10.5.6, and 10.6.2. We are using Ethernet to connect to our Windows 2003 R2 Server. Currently, I have experienced extremely slow transfer speeds...For example, a file that is 800MB will take 30 sec. (on the normal IMacs) but on the others (that are acting up) it is taking up to 4 minutes.

I tried using this command: sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0 . I tested transfer speeds on my OSX 10.5.8 machine, setting the ACK to 0,1,2 and 3 with a 534 MB file........Read entire story here

Tim McEwan kept getting the -36 error when watching movies located on a network attached storage (NAS) device over SMB. A previously suggested workaround didn't work for him. McEwan's workarounds are to use QuickLook to view the video, or launch QuickTime and access from the Open menu:

I'd just like to add to the slew of reports on error code - 36 and SMB. I have the issue trying to watch videos from my Vantec NAS via SMB. Running the file from Finder results in a 36 error. My tests/observations........Read entire story here

Paragon Software has released Version 8 of Paragon HFS+ for Windows ($US 40), a new version of software that enables Windows to read and write to Mac-formatted storage. Previous versions provided Windows with read-only access to Mac storage, version 8 adds the ability to write as well. The company also claims that Paragon HFS+ for Windows is the fastest HFS+ driver available for Windows. The software is compatible with Boot Camp, giving dual-boot Mac users the ability to read and write to Mac partitions while booted from Windows.

Parallels announced it would release Parallels Server for Mac 4 on July 2. Parallels Server for Mac 4 is a new version of the server virtualization software that is optimized for running on Mac OS X Server hosts. The new version increases performance over the previous version, according to Parallels, and adds support for additional operating systems, as well as other new features.

The new version supports running Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 in virtual machines, as well as the Snow Leopard client.........Read entire story here

MillerTech wrote in our Macs and VPN Forum that when he accesses a Windows XP PC from a Mac over a VPN network, he can't print to a printer connected to the PC. He can print to other printers on the network, however.

If you've seen this problem or can help, post a reply to his post in our VPN forum.

Randy Campion believes he is seeing a previously reported problem with the Cisco VPN Client and Snow Leopard 10.6.3:

The issue mentioned in your article at "Problem with Cisco VPN client not resolving IP addresses" sounds like the exact same problem that I am having currently. We initially had problems with our VPN being set up from our ISP where the domain servers weren't pointed to our server in the office, so it wouldn't resolve and WINS names for any local computers, but that problem has been fixed..........Read entire story here

Darlene Burke's Cisco VPN Client no longer worked after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.6.4:

I updated the Mac OS to 10.6.4 and am no longer able to connect using Cisco VPN 4.9.01. I tried reinstalling but when I try to connect it gives me a username and password field but doesn't let me actually type anything into either field. I downloaded a fresh .dmg but no luck. Not sure if this is the same issue you had noted in your article Reader sees Error 51 with Cisco VPN and OS X 10.6.3..........Read entire story here

Don Lehnhoff confirmed a fix with Mail in Mac OS X 10.5.x: "I had this exact problem; I followed the fix you had here -- problem solved."

Michael Durket has a problem of Snow Leopard Server crashing when running in a virtual machine in VMware Fusion 3 on a Mac OS X 10.6 host. He found a workaround, which is to assign only a single CPU to the virtual machine:

I purchased your book "Snow Leopard Server for Dummies" and it's been really helpful. Since I'm initially running Snow Leopard Server in a VMware Fusion 3 VM, I read your chapter on running the Server in a VM carefully and followed the tips for leaving the memory size alone and setting the virtual CPUs from 1 to 2......Read entire story here

Joaquin Merzo in the UK has the previously reported problem of Windows 7 in Boot Camp crashing after waking from sleep. However, instead of a straight crash, Windows 7 gets gradually worse before crashing:

Windows 7 cannot be re-awakened fully from sleep. It partially works, in that I can select Windows applications can, but the applications cannot be closed. Gradually less is available and Alt,Ctrl,Del does not work, I cannot be shut down or reboot from the task bar. Eventually the task bar disappears altogether, forcing me to do a power off. This is an iMac computer 2.8Ghz Core i7 / 4Gb Ram / 2Tb hard drive with Boot Camp 3.1.

If you've seen this

DNK confirmed a suggestion for Linux SMB servers to keep the Mac Finder from freezing when accessing it. The fix is to edit the /etc/samba/smb.conf file on the server to keep .DS_Store files writable by changing the veto files parameter:

This solved my issues with the browsing of sub directories. Before, I could connect to the share, and see only the top level. If I wanted to go deeper in the hierarchy, I had to relaunch the Finder. I removed my veto line that killed the .DS_Store, and all started working. This veto line was never an issue for me in older versions of OS X.

If you've tried this

Like some other readers, Christopher Hearn confirmed that adding "unix extensions = no" to a Linux server's smb.conf file stopped Mac SMB file sharing clients from getting -36 errors. However, it came at a price:

While I can verify this does work, it also severely hinders SMB performance. With the option disabled, I would get ~50MB/s using SMB with OS X clients to OS X Server. With the option enabled, throughput dropped to ~5MB/s.

If you've seen this

Like some readers, John Stanfield found that a Terminal command we posted fixes slow SMB performance in Snow Leopard:

Regarding slow, Snow Leopard SMB Browsing, this seems to have worked for me: sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0

However, not all readers have had success with this. To start a discussion, post a note in our new Snow Leopard File Sharing forum.

This week, Apple released the 10.6.4 update to Mac OS X and to Mac OS X Server. Among various fixes Apple lists in its support article are improved reliability of VPN connection and fixes of problems "copying, renaming, or deleting files on SMB file servers." Mac OS X Server 10.6.4 has the same fixes as the climate, plus others, including fixing "an issue that could prevent one from copying files larger than 2 GB to an SMB volume."

Since the Snow Leopard first shipped, readers have been reporting various problems with SMB file sharing (see Snow Leopard File Sharing Tips and Reports). However, readers today reported that the update does not fix problem of slow SMB file browsing.

how the 10.6.4 update affects your SMB file sharing problems.

Although readers have previously reported that slow SMB file sharing cleared up with a new version of the Finder, readers today said that that the Finder in the new Mac OS X 10.6.4 does not fix the problem. Marius de Reus in Holland reports:

We are also struggling with slow browsing from Mac to our Win 2008 SBS server. The new Snow Leopard 10.6.4 (with Finder 10.6.5) doesn't fix the speed problems for us. Opening folders on the server can still easily last about 15 seconds, while there are only 12 files in the folder. I also tried the terminal tcp.delayed setting with no luck. This is very annoying!

Lee Campbell said the same:

Mac OS X 10.6.3 Build 10D2094 does not fix slow SMB. Nor does 10.6.4 update to Snow Leopard, which does claim to fix issues with samba file sharing. It seems that this update doesnt' fix the problem. I'm on an April 2010 Macbook Pro.

Apple has a new (or updated) how-to white paper called Modifying the Active Directory Schema to Support Mac Systems, dated May 2010. Modifying the schema is one of three basic ways of adding Macs to an Active Directory network is to modify the schema on the server. (The other two are to install a Mac OS X Server, or to use a third-party product, such as Thursby Software's DAVE, Centrify's DirectControl, or Likewise Software's Likewise.)

Although many system admins don't like the idea of modifying the schema, the paper provides step-by-step instructions to do so, which Apple calls "extending the AD schema to manage Mac systems.?

What do you think? Is this a good idea? Post your opinion in the MacWindows Active Directory forums.

Garrett Stevens sent us a procedure to get around the problem of Macs losing administrator access when reconnecting to a network with access to a domain controller. Previously, a reader sent us an Applescript to get around the problem. Here is Steven's approach:

We have seen this issue in all versions of Leopard and Snow Leopard, I never did test in Tiger. Here are the steps I take to give our users those rights both on our network and off. If you have not already done so, create a Mac security group in Active Directory for your Mac user(s) depending on who you want to have admin access to the computer(s). Add those users needing admin rights to the group. Add that group to the "Allow Administration by" section and verify the Mobile Login checkbox is checked in Directory Utility......Read entire story here

This week, Equinux updated its universal VPN client for Mac OS X, VPN Tracker 6.2.2. The new version adds connection profiles that work with VPN gateways from ZyXEL, including all ZyWALL Unified Security Gateways (USG) and the ZyWALL 1050 Internet Security Appliance. Equinox offers instructions for connecting to several hundred different gateways at its web site. The update is free to VPN Tracker 6 users.

VPN Tracker 6, released last year, includes a feature called Secure Desktop that can gather standard applications in a central location to check e-mails, open files from the server, use Remote Desktop or restart Windows applications using Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion. The Secure Desktop automatically builds the necessary VPN connections, disconnecting safely once finished.

Adrian Pinderhughes shared a server-based approach to slow Mac access to Windows servers. It has to do with the TCP Acknowledgment (ACK) behavior in the TcpAckFrequency registry entry of the server. Previously, a reader sent in a workaround for slow SMB access to Windows servers that acted on the Mac client side. This was to use this command in Terminal: sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0

Pinderhughes deals with this on the server's registry:

I saw your thread on a message board. While indirectly related, we have software that runs slowly in such an environment. While making the change on the client side has helped, we have seen dramatic speed increases when making the a change on the server side, as described by Microsoft. There is more info regarding the cause of this issue here.

If you've tried this approach

Federico Gianni agrees that the 10.6.3 update causes Macs to no longer see the printers:

It's a real and BIG issue. I can't believe that Apple programmers let this happen. I've lost all my network printers, and probably have to reinstall my Snow Leopard if 10.6.4 don't come soon.

As suggested, I tried repairing permissions via Disk Utility and this doesn't work for network printers. Thinking logically it shouldn't work, but I tried just in case.

Craig Seeman followed up his previous report about current versions of the RealTek drivers not fixing speaker problems in Windows running with Boot Camp on Macs. Seeman thinks previous reports of it working may have been misinterpreting the results:

In fact those who believe they have it working but have low audio may actually be hearing bleed through as I noted the same thing. The key is watching the icon in the Audio Test app. It never lights. I tested all the other inputs/outputs and they all worked. Additionally I tried other audio devices using the line out on the back to ensure there wasn't something specific to the speakers or the audio plug. The back line out does not work under Boot Camp on MacPro. I had the same issue with Windows XP and Boot Camp 3.

what you think.

Meanwhile, Lada Kouklik is another reader with the problem: "I have experienced the same problem as stated below. I would appreciate any advice regarding this matter."

Amir Siddiqui has the problem of Windows 7 in Boot Camp crashing when waking from sleep. He's also seen the problem reported around the web:

I just wanted to let you know that I have also seen crashes on Windows 7 using Boot Camp 3.1 that fit the description you provided on your website. I am using a 2008 MacBook (Summer 13 Inch) running a Core 2 T8300 with Windows 7 x86 and Snow Leopard 10.6.3. I have searched the web and found many other people experiencing the exact same problems, and there seems to be no resolution, at least to my knowledge.

If you've seen this

Maria send in an old tip for sending email attachments from Macs to Windows users. We don't know if this is behind the recent problem report about Windows 7 Live Mail, but it is worth repeating:

Bo Hejl described a problem with sending mail from an iPad's Exchange account. It sounds similar to a previous report about iPad/Exchange email, where a solution was offered by a reader. Hejl reports:

If I compose a mail on my iPad or iPhone, using my exchange account, European characters (æ, ø, å and other accented characters) will be ineligible when the message has been received and is read in another account. It is not quite consistent, however. Mail sent from Exchange to MobileMe is garbled when read on the iPhone and iPad, but not on web-MobileMe, mail received by an imap account tend not to be garbled, but is occasionally.

I have tried to change settings on my Windows Exchange client (character sets, HTML formatting) but to no avail. The problem is significant when mails are forwarded to different type of clients, responded to etc.

If you've seen this

Peter Bruderer responded to the report Juniper SSL VPN problem with Mac clients with a suggestion to update the client:

Version 6.2.0 from Juniper SSL VPN is old old old. Current version is 6.5R4. Everything works there as expected. Upgrade Juniper SSL VPN.

If you've tried this

Two readers responded to Bob Nine's report of Snow Leopard Macs not being able to log in to Active Directory after going into sleep mode. Both offered advice for how to deal with the issue. The first report was from Bob, updating his previous report with some advice he received from Apple:

We had a breakthrough after I sent the previous email: I called Apple Support. It was a good experience. I signed up on the website and the phone system called me. Talked to the first guy for a few minutes, then he sent me to his manager. His manager did not know, but researched it on their knowledge system. We fixed this very easily. Here is the process......Read entire story here

Dan Tidswell did some testing and believes that Active Directory causes slow SMB connections in Snow Leopard:

After reading your post I decided to take some time out today to debug my problems with SMB connectivity to my Windows 2008 R2 server. I was experiencing very slow connections to shares and then slow transfer speeds when I copied data to/from the shares.

Essentially, for me the problems seem to be related to Active Directory and Snow Leopard. Once I rebuilt the server (without installing Active Directory) everything worked fine......Read entire story here

Glen Haubold has a problem syncing an iPad with Exchange Server:

This drives me crazy. I have the new iPad, and our university has Outlook Exchange 2007. Set up was a snap, and everything syncs perfectly - except the little icon that tells me that the message has been replied to or forwarded. The iPad marks them, and of course Exchange marks them - but the icons don't sync. I'm surprised that I can't find that mentioned anywhere

If you've seen this problem

Jørn Støylen in Norway reports a problem in which Leopard clients saving Word files would crash ExtremeZ-IP, an AFP server for Windows. His fix was simple:

We're running 10.5.8, and often when we tried to save a Word document to our Windows Server, the server would crash. This was only Word, and both .doc and .docx.

But good news! Our IT dept. fixed it by upgrading ExtremeZ-IP on the server to the latest version.

If you've seen this

Readers have previously reported that installing RealTek audio drivers in Windows in Boot Camp fixed a problem with speakers not working. However, Craig Seeman reports that the latest versions of RealTek drivers do not fix the problem:

I updated Realtek drivers from 6.0.1.5936 to currently available version 6.0.1.6101 and it does NOT fix the no-audio-from-back-speakers issue. I have Bootcamp 3.1 and Windows 7 Pro.

If you've seen this issue

Last week PocketMac released PlayNice (US $40), new software for Mac OS X and Windows that can sync contacts, calendars, and tasks between iCal and Address Book on the Mac and Outlook in Windows. It will also sync Mac data with Windows in a Parallels Desktop virtual machine.

One user licenses allows users to install PlayNice on up to three computers, or computers and a virtual machine, and the software can sync all of them. It will also sync between two Macs or two PCs. The software will automatically detect other computers running PlayNice on a network and within virtual machines.

A reader named Augwell posted in our new discussion forums about a problem he is having with Snow Leopard and Active Directory-based home folders. Here's a portion of his report.

"...I can't seem to get the user's network home folder to come back to the dock. I have tried everything I know of including unbinding and rebinding the computer, changing settings for "force local user home folder" etc. I have a feeling that a simple plist file controls the automount and dock folder icon, but I can't find any information to lead me in the right direction."

Read the full report here. If you've seen a similar issue, please post a reply to Augwell's post here.

Bob Nine is having problems with Active Directory Mac clients that go to sleep and can no longer log in. He tried an Apple workaround we described earlier this week for Macs stuck in screen saver mode, to no avail:

This is not working the way I want. I am a long time Windows IT geek. I own several Macs myself. This is the first one we are getting into the AD network at the office. My issue is when I put the Mac to sleep (closing lid) and go to a meeting, I cannot log back in. I can log into another name, then get the wireless going, and then switch back to the AD name. It is like the AD profile is not cached. I see the home directory on the local HDD, but it is NEVER an option when I am off the network. I ran the fix suggested in your post, and that assisted in the wired solution speed. It did not change the wireless solution or the offline situation. I will not get this approved for general use without offline user profile access.

If you can help

Terence Tellis reports a problem with the Mac Juniper SSL Network client:

I have been facing an issue with the Juniper SSL Network client (Ver 6.2.0) on one of our Mac systems. Initially when I had installed the Juniper network connect client on the system, everything was working fine and there were no issues absolutely. All of a sudden one day it started throwing up an error and just refused to connect after that. The error message is "Your Session Terminated Unexpectedly. A software error caused the tunneling service to terminate......Read entire story here

Ricardo did not see a big boost in performance with updating VMware Fusion to version 3.1. (Other readers have reported speed increases with the update.) Ricardo also found that updating the virtual machines took an hour or more. He only has 2 GB of RAM in the Mac, which could have something to do with it:

I found your news about Fusion 3.1 update very interesting and decided to download and install it on my Mac. On this machine, I have two Windows installations: one is Boot Camp and the other is a virtual machine installed on a Sparse Bundle Disk Image. I tested both, they seem to work fine with Fusion 3.1, although my short tests did not show a substantial speed increase......Read entire story here

Two readers commented on the story TIP: Win 7 settings for accessing Mac OS X Server. The suggestion was to type Secpol.msc in Start button, and eventually change "Send NTMLv2 response only" to "Send LM & NTLM -use NTLMv2 session if negotiated." Robert Rae said, "This worked, but not over wireless."

John Kaiser added one more step:

The other quirk is that you have to map a drive letter. \\server\path will show an empty folder. This is Windows 7 connecting to a Mac OS X Server 10.3.9 running Samba 3.0.10, which is kind of old. And thanks for the tip.

If you've tried this

A couple of reader report big performance gains with the new VMware Fusion 3.1 update over version 3.0, as VMware has promised. David Keldsen reports:

Yes, indeed, it's substantially faster, both boot and resume times. Mind you, I'm using it on relatively high-end hardware (i7 iMac), but it takes advantage of the hardware MUCH more now, and still doesn't impact other processes.

In our new discussion forum, Steve said the speed difference between versions 3.0 and 3.1 is significant. Steve's forum entry is here. If you've tried VMware Fusion 3.1 or post a note in our new VMware Fusion forum.

(See also VMware Fusion Tips and Reports.)

Kevin David reported that Parallels DesKtop 5 disabled his MacBook Pro's battery. We had reports of this with an earlier version of Parallels Desktop. David said:

Getting the MacBook Pro battery to work in Parallels 5, I got the same issues that Sven had and I tried the suggestions that he made. The last thing I did was an SMC reset and that worked. Hopefully Parallels fixes this, as this is not cool.

If you've seen this with Parallels Desktop 5 or post a note in our new Parallels Desktop forum.

(See also Parallels Tips and Reports.)

Louis Hopcraft reports that VirtualBox isn't listed as a 64-bit app and doesn't run 64-bit guest OS's:

I've been using VirtualBox on Snow leopard for quite a while now, and it's been working great, but I have noticed that under Activity Monitor, Virtualbox is not listed as a 64-bit app. I'm running the latest version for OS X. But when I download a 64-bit OS like kdenlive-x64-20090612.vmdk, it won't boot, and displays the following error: "This kernel requires an x86-64 CPU, but only detected an i686 CPU. Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU."

In Activity Monitor I noticed that I have quite a few 64-bit apps running.

Comment on this by or by posting a note in our new VirtualBox forum.

(See also VirtualBox Tips and Reports.)

John Gilbert has the problem where Snow Leopard clients bound to Active Directory get stuck in screen saver mode. Two readers previously said that Apple support article TS3287 fixed the problem. Gilbert reports that it didn't for him. But he found another Apple Tech support article, TS3248, that did. This fix is to lengthen the default timeout for .local name lookups by editing an info.plist file. Gilbert reports:

I seem to have the symptoms described in your tip of 2 April 2010. The Apple fix made no difference. What did help was another Apple fix: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3248. This is one of the problems related to having an AD domain which ends in .local.

If you've tried this

Andy Macdonald is seeing the problem saving .docx files to Windows Server from within Word. This widely reported problem in Snow Leopard was fixed with the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update. However, Macdonald sees the problem in Leopard, and cites a report of the issue from five years ago:

Just to add that our users are experiencing a similar problem on Macs running Leopard (10.5.8) bound to Active Directory and Open Directory, authenticating against AD.

When trying to save a new Word for Mac 2008 document in default .docx format to the home directory on a Windows Server 2008 share, gives the "Word can not save ..." error message and creates a zero byte file "Word Work File D_{number}.tmp" in the folder.

One workround we found in our environment is to save in .doc format (Office 97-2004) - no problem.

Interesting to see reports of a Microsoft guy working hard on very similar problems in 2005!

If you're seeing this problem in Leopard

Ramon Espinosa is getting error 51 when he tries to connect to a Cisco VPN. This was a problem readers reported with Mac OS X 10.6.0, but Espinosa has the latest version:

I'm using Mac OS X 10.6.3 and still get the error 51. Restarting the services doesn't work neither reinstalling the software. Built-in VPN Client used to work, now it starts, asks for login/password "thinks" for some seconds and disconnects the VPN, never get to actually connect.

If you've seen this problem

Today, VMware released VMware Fusion 3.1, a substantial under-the-hood update to the virtualization software for Mac OS X. VMware said the update increases graphics performance by a factor of 5 over Fusion 3.0, improves general performance by 35 percent, and increases the speed of various tasks. The new version also improves use with Boot Camp, fixes problema with Migration Assistant that readers had reported, and includes over 20 other improvements......Read entire story here

Yesterday Google released its first non-beta Mac and Linux versions of its Chrome web browser. The new version includes new features and faster performance. Google did not say if the never version is feature-equivalent to the Windows version, which Google has previously said was a goal of the Mac version. The Windows version of Google Chrome has been available.....Read entire story here

Andrew Elmer updated his report from yesterday about Mac OS X 10.6.3 blocking access to printers from Windows 7 PCs. Today he sent us a fix:

I have had some success over the error. While I read somewhere that the error was associated with some HP drivers I didn't believe it was the driver because in the past I had used the exact same driver without any issues. But I finally decided to try and use another HP driver and indeed it did work. The printer I use is a HP Photosmart C4280 and the driver I tried to use countless times was HP Photosmart C4200 series. At the moment I can't recall the driver I use now but it works fine and the error no longer showed up the driver install correctly and now I can print from Windows 7 Ultimate to my shared Snow Leopard printer.

If you've seen this

Doug Yunker reports that Mac users that include periods at the end of file and folder names on a server can't access them:

I fixed a problem with Leopard and Snow Leopard not viewing folders on my Windows shares. Panther and Tiger worked fine. My Mac users were saving files and folders with spaces or periods at the end of their names. NTFS permissions couldn't apply, and the newer Macs could see the folder initially, but when they try to open them, they would be empty or disappear. I had to rename them with the Panther computer, and then everything worked fine.

If you've seen this behavior

A new Apple support article describes fix for Active Directory users who receive an "unable to log in to the user account" error message. The article describes the symptoms occurring when users have home folders on the server. The fix is to edit the Mac client's /etc/auto_master file to comment out the /Network/Servers entry:

# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master # Use directory service
/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid
/home auto_home -nobrowse,hidefromfinder
#/Network/Servers -fstab
/- -static

Olivier Jaillet in Switzerland agreed with last week's report, Reader says slow SMB file browsing started with Win 2008:

I read your post about slow connections to mount SMB shares from a Windows Small Business Server 2008 with a MBP OS X 10.6. We have another Windows Server with 2003 and it goes much faster. I think the problem is on the configuration of the SBS 2008.

If you've seen this

Ben West reported success with last week's suggestion for resolving slow SMB file sharing in Snow Leopard:

I ran the sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0 command on my iMac which is accessing a Windows Server share over a VPN connection. This solved my slow browsing SMB issue completely.

However, the workaround did not work for Guillaume Dasnon in France, but he points out that the problem only occurs with Active Directory......Read entire story here

Andrew Elmer sees the same problem as a previous report about the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update preventing Windows access to Mac-connected printers:

I too have this exact same problem however I'm accessing Snow Leopard from WIndows 7 Ultimate. Before upgrading to Snow Leopard the printing worked flawlessly. But ever since upgrading I cannot get the printer to work because windows 7 reports "windows cannot connect to the printer" and displays error 0x000003eb. Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

If you've seen this

Chaithanya Ravipati in Australia reports having the problem of modification dates of Office files changing when files are opened on a Windows server:

We have Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 with Mac OS X 10.6.3 clients using Office 2004 and Office 2008. As soon as you open the Office documents, the date modified changes, even if you haven't made any changes to the document.

If you've seen this problem

Apple has released a Boot Camp update, Build 2354, specifically for one Mac model, the 13" mid-2010 MacBook Pro. The update is downloaded and installed from within Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7. The article describes how to download and install the update within Windows, and how to verify that it was installed. The update addresses an issue with speakers not working and other issues.

MacWindows.com has launched its first reader discussion forums. Covering the same types of topics that MacWindows has reported on for almost 13 years, the new discussion forums are a place where users can directly communicate with each other to report their experiences, recommendations, problems, and tips for working with Macs and Windows together. The boards contain over two dozen forum topics, including running Windows on Macs, Macs in Active Directory, Entourage, and file sharing. There's also a place for cross-platform consultants and people looking for consultants to find each other.

The new discussions forums are a work in progress. As always, we'd like to have your feedback. You can leave comments in the MacWindows Feedback forum at the bottom of the main forums page.

MacWindows will continue to publish reader reports on the home page and on the Tips and Reports pages, focusing on bug reports, workarounds and fixes. (Look for the "let us know" links on the main site to send a report.) We'll also continue reporting news about products focused on helping users and organizations integrate Macs and Windows.

Since 1997, MacWindows has been the Web's leading provider of news and information about getting Macs and Windows to work together. We've published reader reports from every continent -- including Antarctica.

By John Rizzo

Oracle's VirtualBox 3.2.0 is the first virtualization software to add support for running Mac OS X in a virtual machine--and the first to be at odds with Apple restrictions on the use of the OS. The new version of VirtualBox adds "experimental" support for running Mac OS X as a guest OS on Apple hardware, a use that could violate Apple's end user license agreement (EULA). Apple's Mac OS X EULA permits only one copy of the operating system to be run on a Mac at one time--even with a 5-license Family Pack. The EULA for Mac OS X Server, however, has not had this restriction since Apple changed the Server EULA at the end of 2007......Read entire story here

Tom Waterhouse reports some success with Monday's suggestion for improving Snow Leopard's SMB browsing speeds:

Just to say that we've tried this terminal tip:

"sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0" on two of our Macs in our office (of which runs on various versions of windows server) and it seems to help.

Our systems admin didn't like the sound of setting it to "0", so we're running it at "1" and it seems to make a bit of an improvement, but still runs slowly now and then, albeit rarely. Thanks for the tip!

If you've tried this

Bruce Austin verified last week's report that Snow Leopard's slow SMB file sharing problems disappear when using Cocoatech's Path Finder utility instead of the Finder:

I've been plagued with the slow access to SMB files on shared servers, and like so many others on your SMB thread this all began for me when I upgraded to Snow Leopard (i.e. Never had issues with 10.5.x).

Responding to a tip on your site pertaining to NAS error issues, I downloaded a copy of Path Finder, and amazingly, using this navigation interface has resolved my issues of slow-connecting to my company_s SMB servers. In other words, using Apple's Finder = long wait times to mount servers and navigate directories, whereas the same activity using Path Finder I experience no unusual wait times.

My experience with Path Finder suggests the issue is on Apple's side rather than with the Windows 2008 Server that some of your posters have pointed to.

Asger Jensen followed up on his previous report about a new Finder 10.6.5 build not having the slow SMB browsing problems. He now thinks that the problem is resolved not just with the new Finder, but a new build to Mac OS X 10.6.3 -- Build 10D2094-- that is showing up on some new Macs:

I have made a few more observations that might be of interest to you and all the others who struggle with this very annoying issue. First I will be using OS X build numbers:

Macbook Pro 15" 2.4 Core2Duo 2008 retail OSX 10.6.3: Build 10D*573*
Macbook Pro 15" 2.4 Core i5 2010 preinstalled OSX 10.6.3: Build 10D*2094*

Having now browsed literally hundreds of folders with no problems on 2094 compared to frequent pauses (every 20 or so folders opened) on 573 I feel confident that the issue has been fixed in build 2094......Read entire story here

Michal Mysliwiec found a fix for the problem of Snow Leopard's Software Update hanging for Active Directory users. He changed a setting with the Active Directory plugin:

I had this problem too. My Active Directory user have admin flag in Accounts settings checked. But Software Update won't install anything.

I had to change Active Directory plugin settings. There is a place where you can add domain groups that will have privileges to administer your computer. I just added "DOMAIN\domain users" and Software Update works fine. This also solved some other problems with user privileges in other applications.

If you've tried this approach

Ricardo suggested a work around for the Snow Leopard problem of slow browsing of SMB file shares. He recommends typing a command in Terminal:

I am on 10.6.3 and I am still experiencing this problem. I've got about 250 Gb of MP3 on a Windows XP share, and while adding files to the iTunes library I have to go add a few folders at a time. I found the following to be a potential solution, while it made it better, I still have problems:

sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0

The original setting is ack=3. This has something to do with samba, but I'm not sure what.

If you've tried this

An anonymous reader told us "The 10.6.5 Finder DOES NOT fix it for me!" in response to last week's report regarding a new version 10.6.5 of the Finder that was reported to fix Snow Leopard's problem of slow SMB browsing. Rodrigo Perez tried a different approach -- a drag-and-drop copy of the new Finder (which is located in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices/) to his Mac. It didn't work. However, Perez reported some interesting information:

I read the post yesterday regarding "Reader says new Finder 10.6.5 fixes slow SMB browsing," so I stopped by the local Apple store last night and copied the 10.6.5 Finder onto a flash drive. I installed it this morning to give it a try; however, it did not fix the slow browsing problem on my MacBook Pro. It would appear that there are some other updates that may be necessary to address the issue. I have also worked with AppleCare to try and resolve the SMB access delay......Read entire story here

George Markides says his slow file browsing problems started only with Windows Server 2008:

Ever since my school board went to Windows Server 2008 our Macintosh machines take a VERY long time (3-5 minutes) to display the contents of shared folders on the server. When the school board was running Server 2003 the Macintoshes were loading up folders as fast as the PCs. We have not found a work-around yet.

If you've seen a change in Windows Server slow down file browsing

We've been posting reports of slow Snow Leopard SMB file sharing for user connecting not only Windows servers, but with Linux servers and network attached storage. (See Snow Leopard File Sharing Tips and Reports.)

Anne Balish shared a suggested workaround for problems with Snow Leopard clients losing binding from Active Directory. She send us a script that changes the passinterval on the Mac clients:

I'm having problems with OS 10.6.2 "unbinding" from Active Directory (Windows Server 2003). We have 15 iMacs running OS X 10.5.8 that we have no problems with being bound to AD. We also have 15 MacBooks with OS X 10.6.2 and they are constantly "unbinding" from AD. To correct the problem I need to log in as the local administrator, unbind and then rebind to AD. That fixes the problem until the next restart or after a certain amount of time goes by. The other fix...Read entire story here

Jon Holt has seen the problem with Mac OS X Server where users performing a Spotlight search on an AFP volume get no results returned. He sent a suggestion to fix it:

Easy fix: Just force index off and then back on inside the Terminal through Remote Desktop to your workstations. Reindex. Problem solved. It is an issue with 10.5 server that I am familiar with.

If you've tried this approach

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous has a problem receiving attachments from Mac users:

I could not see any JPG or PDF files listed as attachments when I received them emailed from Mac users. I use Windows 7/Windows Live Mail. The JPGs showed up as embedded within/at the bottom of the email message itself, but did not show up as attached files that I could save/open.

I found the Windows Live Solution Center and they had a few suggestions. The first one worked, to a degree. It seemed that "Read all messages in plain text" was not checked at Tools, Options, Read (via Tools on the Windows Live Mail toolbar). I never "unchecked" that, so it had to be a setting that came with Windows 7 on my new computer. But oddly enough, it seemed to affect only email attachments coming from Macs.

However, I've realized it's not the best fix. It allows me to see jpegs and PDFs listed as attached, and thereby to access them, but now all the e-newsletters I get just look like "plain text," no graphics. So it's not a total solution yet.

If you've seen this

Cal responded to an older report about Snow Leopard not being able to connect to a Cisco VPN using IPSec over UDP. Cal said:

I have also seen this and submitted a bug. Since you posted this, any other work arounds?

We haven't, but if you have

Asger Jensen in Europe reports that he received a brand new MacBook Pro installed with Finder version 10.6.5. His other Snow Leopard Macs have Finder 10.6.4. More significantly, Finder 10.6.5 doesn't have the Snow Leopard problems of slow SMB file share browsing:

Until now I have tried all suggestions on your site to fix the dreaded problem with browsing SMB-shares from 10.6.1-through-10.6.3 with no luck. But today, browsing the exact same shares from my new MacBook Pro 15" 2010 model I experience no sudden pauses in directory listing.

It seems though that Apple has fixed the problem in a new build of the Finder.app. On my machine with the shipped OS X10.6.3, Finder.app is version 10.6.5, but on the Company's Mac Pro with retail OSX 10.6.3 the Finder.app is 10.6.4. So hopefully OS X 10.6.4 will include Finder.app 10.6.5.

If you've seen Finder 10.6.5 on your new Mac if it fixes this issue.

CodeWeavers yesterday released CrossOver Games 9.0 (US $40), a major new version of the software that enables Mac OS X and Linux to run Windows games natively, without Windows itself. The new version supports more Windows games, including StarCraft 2 (beta) and StarTrek Online, and runs previously supported games run better. It also adds support for the new Steam user interface, and works with community-support profiles for Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and others. The application installation process is also new. Users can also now install games with a single screen, or with single click from CodeWeavers' Compatibility Center web site......Read entire story here

John Borges used optical audio output to get around the problem of speakers not working from Windows running with Boot Camp:

I have a 2006 Mac Pro. When I upgraded to Vista, I could not get the line out to work. All sounds would come from the internal speaker. I have tried various things, including installing the RealTek drivers, as your site suggests. Loading the latest drivers did help: I did get sound but it was about 3db low.

The most reliable way to fix this problem was to use the optical output, which works great in both OS X and Vista. Fortunately I am using a receiver with an optical input. This also works fine with the Mac side. The only issue is that you lose the system volume control when you are using digital out.

One glitch is that the sound level control preference doesn't work. You have to use the volume controls on each app.

If you've tried this approach .

Joel Amar sent us a follow-up to his previous story, Using Hebrew and Arabic Windows in Boot Camp on new Macs. The problem is that he was unable to install the latest Boot Camp drivers in localized version of Windows 7, including Hebrew and Arabic. He described workaround as "the only fix is to open each driver with winrar and add enableNotListedLanguages in the DPINST file..."

Amar has now provided us with a detailed guide to build a proper and unlocked Boot Camp DVD, might be handy for other purposes as well......Read entire story here

George Zervakos commented on the story Handling Entourage 2008 Database Corruption, sharing his experience with the problem:

I came across this page on your site and read it with great interest. I had a user whose Entourage database was rebuilt. He had a roughly 4GB database, one IMAP account and one Exchange account. The database rebuild took a few hours, after which everything seemed to be working fine. A few days later, someone pointed out that his contacts went missing along with his calendar. Then I had a closer look and realized that the majority of the inbox and sent items were also missing. I traced back the deletions to the date of the database rebuild......Read entire story here

Alain Létourneau in Montreal reports that removing a space at the end of a shared directory cleared up SMB file sharing problems with Snow Leopard:

We are replacing old iMacs running OS/X 10.4 and when testing with the new iMacs running 10.6.x we had problems accessing files in some directories and not others (the files were on a Mac server running 10.4, shared via SMB), we finally figured out that the directories we were having problems with had a space for the last character in the name.

Everything worked fine when we removed the space character at the end of the directory name.

If you've tried this

Harry recommends using Cocoatech's Path Finder (US $40) to get around Snow Leopard problems accessing network attached storage (NAS):

Download the Path Finder app. On the share file on NAS (public or private user folder) changing the permissions to write, read and execute to folder and enclosed subfolders (for the current user) and you have no more write permissions and Error -36 when you try copy folders or files .

Path Finder is available as a free trial. If you've tried it as a fix for file sharing issues

(For more workarounds to the problem, see Snow Leopard File Sharing Tips and Reports.)

Two readers report problems with Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 and AFP file sharing. Both report that reverting to version 10.6.2 eliminates the problem. Jony Holt writes:

Users are saving files into server 10.6.3 through AFP and the files are being saved with only R/W access to them. The server sees this issue as well. Can manually change but no known fix. Roll back to 10.6.2 issue went away.

Another reader from New Zealand, who wishes to remain anonymous, has a different problem with AFP and Server 10.6.3:

Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 AFP no longer works for Workgroup members but is OK for users with account on server. SMB shares fine with all users. Just prior to 10.6.3 update, the server was running flawlessly on 10.6.2......Read entire story here

Two readers report that very slow Snow Leopard access to SMB shares continues in version 10.6.3. Chay Wesley sees it with a Windows server:

Just found your website while Googling for a solution to the problem I'm having since installing Snow Leopard. Very long waits for Finder to connect to a Windows Server 2008 SMB share. It does always connect eventually, but waiting for it is maddening. This behavior continues to persist even with 10.6.3 installed. No problems with 10.5.x.

Lee Campbell sees it with a Linux server, but the delay is reduced in a Windows domain......
Read entire story here

JAMF Software announced that it has updated its Casper Suite client management software to enable administrators to import pre-built preference manifests within the JAMF Software Server. The company said Casper Suite improves handling of managed preferences (MCX) for Mac OS X. JAMS is doing this through integration with the Manifest Destiny Project, a public collaboration that collects and makes freely available Mac OS X preference manifests submitted by system administrators. JAMF described The Manifest Destiny project as a "pool of shared knowledge and resources amongst IT Administrators..." ...Read entire story here

Siber Systems has released GoodSync for Mac, the first Mac OS X version of the Windows utility for backing up and synchronizing files between devices. The software can sync files between Macs, Macs and Windows PCs, external drives, and Windows Mobile devices. It works over networks, WebDAV, FTP, FTPS, and over a USB cable. The company said that GoodSync for Mac can sync as many as five million files at once.

A personal version of GoodSync for Mac is available as a free download. The US $30 GoodSync for Mac Pro offers unlimited jobs and file synchronization plus toll-free phone and web support.

Joel Amar discovered that on new iMacs and MacBook Pros, he could no longer install Boot Camp drivers in Hebrew and Arabic versions for Windows. He found the cause of the problem, and a solution:

Since the last iMac models (21.5" & 27") and the new MacBook Pro (i5 and i7) it is not possible to install Boot Camp drivers on Hebrew or Arabic User Interface Localized version of Windows (XP, Vista or 7) and probably on many other localized versions.

No error message or indication appears during installation, but after restart only the Boot Camp control panel and HFS drivers are installed. Missing are all the Apple drivers (Bluetooth, iSight, Keyboard, etc..), Cirrus, Intel, Broadcom, Atheros drivers......Read entire story here

An anonymous reader did not have luck with a previously reported workaround for a problem with Boot Camp and Windows 7 16-bit color depth:

I have this same problem. I gave MrCyberdude's solution a try, but sorry, it didn't work.

If you've tried this workaround

Tonmoy Ghosh confirmed last week's report that waking a Mac from sleep mode causes Windows 7 to crash in Boot Camp 3.1:

Regarding Win 7 crash on sleep/resume in Boot Camp 3.1. I see the same problem on my MacBook Air running Windows 7 x64 in Boot Camp 3.1. The blue screen points the system's power management driver.

If you've seen this problem

Randall Herra has a problem with his trackpad settings in Boot Camp 3.1 and Windows 7:

I installed Windows 7 Ultimate on the new MacBook Pro (Boot Camp 3.1). When I try to configure the trackpad's mouse settings for the right click, I did checked the primary and secondary option, but now, the trackpad only works as a secondary click and can not go back. When I try to remove the check again, it does not allow me to.

If you've seen this problem

Mediafour has release MacDrive 8.0.5, a maintenance update for the software that enables Windows to read and write to Mac-formatted drives and partitions, including the Mac drive partition from within a Boot Camp-installed Windows. The update fixes an issue with Mac-formatted FireWire drives on Windows 7, and problems resuming from sleep with external USB and FireWire Mac-formatted disks. The update also improves mounting and unmounting DMG files in Windows, improves working with Time Machine, and fixes and improves several other issues.

Owners of MacDrive can download this update from the Mediafour web site.

Paragon Software is offering 50,000 free copies of its recently released HFS+ for Windows, driver software that provides read-only access to Mac-formatted storage from within Windows.

However, Paragon's web page makes a claim that is not accurate: " HFS for Windows, the only software that lets you read Apple iPods, Macs and iPad data from a Windows PC." In fact, there are other utilities for Windows that provide read-only access to HFS Plus storage, and several that provide both read and write access, such as MacDrive. See our page Using Mac drives on Windows PCs for a list of these other products.

Erik Pearson has a workaround to problems of the Finder freezing when access SMB (Samba) directories on a Linux server. He is also running AFP on the same server, and provided information on how to run both netatalk and samba. His report:

Malcolm Heath mentioned a problem on your site that's similar to one I was having, where the Finder would hang when accessing subdirectories of a Samba share point. I discovered the source of my problem......Read entire story here

David Lippa sent some solutions for fixing Mac OS X problems with SMB (Samba) file sharing, with Linux and Windows servers. He recommends a keyword, keeping a single WINS server in a subnet, and configure a Samba server for case sensitivity. Lippa's report:

I have some fixes to some of the Snow Leopard problems with Samba.

1) Use the "hide files" keyword instead of "veto files." The Man page says that they won't show up in Explorer (speed things up) but if you know what you're looking for (that's you, Finder!) you can access them.

2) WINS server issues. There can only be one WINS server *per subnet*......
Read entire story here

Christophe Van Huffel in Belgium told us how he changed Windows 7 security settings to enable access to his Mac OS X Server:

This worked for me, accessing Mac OS X Server from Windows 7 Ultimate:

1. Type Secpol.msc in start button.
2. Expand "Local Policies" and select "Security Options."
3. Alternate : Type secpol.msc to get editor up then
4. Locate "Network Security: LAN Manager Authentication Level" in the list and double-click......Read entire story here

Casey Lynn had success with the tip "TIP: GUI version of Snow Leopard/Net Extender VPN fix," which is a workaround for problems with SonicWall's NetExtender virtual private network client and Snow Leopard:

This worked! And we used this fix on several machines all running Snow Leopard. Worked like a charm on all of them.

MokaFive last week released beta support of Sun VirtualBox in its MokaFive Suite, software that uses "virtual layers" to selectively manage portions within virtual machines running on Mac, Windows, and Linux workstations. The beta version enables users or administrators to create LivePCs virtualization packages using VirtualBox. A LivePC contains the MokaFive client and a virtual machine, and can include the hypervisor. MokaFive's server can distribute the LivePCs to up to several thousand users, but the LivePCs run locally on the users' machines, whether connected to a network or not.

The MokaFive Suite 2.8 supports VMware Fusion for Macs and VMware Player for Windows and Linux in LivePCs. This beta of the client enables use of VirtualBox. Administrators can use the same types of policy controls and privileges regardless of whether VMware or VirtualBox is being used in the LivePC. MokaFive Suite does not support Parallels Desktop, which is the fastest hypervisor for Mac OS X.

TeamViewer has released a version of its TeamViewer desktop sharing software for Linux. The new version enables Macs, Windows PCs, and Linux to remotely control, view, and share screens with each other, as well as direct file transfer. iPhones are also supported. The company said the software is designed for use in IT support services, sales service, training, and webinars.

TeamViewer includes a number of other features, such as voice over IP (VoIP) and instant chat. TeamViwer uses its own compression technology for quick performance, according to the company. TeamViewer does not require port-forwarding, static IP addresses or router configuration, enabling firewalls to remain in place during a TeamViewer session.

Security features include unique user ID code and dynamic password creation, which can be shared with the connection partner via phone or email. Entering this code and password establishes an immediate connection to the corresponding computer. The software uses AES 256-bit session encoding and enables customers to create blacklists and whitelists.

TeamViewer is available free for non-commercial use, and is available for businesses in several different licensing options.

We've updated our report Running Windows on Intel Macs, a comparison of all of the options available, including Boot Camp, the known virtualization products, and CrossOver.

Kim Collier found a workaround for the old problem of Entourage/Exchange problem where all-day events get changed to "Casablanca, Monrovia:"

I found a fix.

1. Open an event in Entourage
2. Click on "Event" on the top bar
3. Scroll down to "Time Zone"
4. Select your time zone

That's it. You only need to do this for one event and it sets the Time Zone for all events. This has completely cleared up my problem with the changes that happen in Outlook after syncing with Entourage through Microsoft Exchange.

If you've tried this suggestion

Johnny QQ has an interesting multi-OS setup: A Dell PC hacked to run Mac OS X, running VirtualBox and VMware Fusion. We would advise that his experience with the two virtualization tools likely don't translate to the experience on an Apple Mac. Still, it is an interesting setup:

I have been running VirtualBox 3.1.6. r5935 and Fusion 2.0 for 7-8 months on my Hackintosh OSX 10.5.8 Dell DXP9150 4GB RAM. Fusion 2.0 seems to run Win XP slower than VB and tried upgrading Fusion to 3.0 and found it to be even much slower than 2.0 leaving me to downgrade back to 2.0. The only issue with VB is USB integration and drag and drop. Though I could live without the drag and drop, USB support is vital. Initially I thought the USB integration on VirtualBox was an issue only with the first version 2. But problem persist even after latest update 3.1.6.r5935. Not sure if the USB issue is attributed to it being a Hackintosh or not, or if it is a normal issue with VB. In any case, VirtualBox is fantastic, its much snappier than Fusion and very little effects on the overall Mac's speed, unlike Fusion.

Of course, Johnny QQ doesn't have a real Mac, so your mileage may vary.

Brian Povlsen (who runs the useful Chicago Mac/PC Support blog on cross-platform issues) sent in some advice and useful information about accessing Cisco virtual private network systems from Snow Leopard:

Your Snow Leopard VPN page has this comment:

Also note that the Cisco VPN Client will not be supported/functional under Mac OS X Snow Leopard (used to kernel panic the machine when booting up if the .kext's were installed, haven't tried under later seeds). I asked Cisco and was told that the only Mac VPN client that would be developed going forward was the AnyConnect VPN.

A direct link to the Cisco documentation that confirms this. It also has some security concerns that an administrator might want to carefully review such as: RetainVpnOnLogoff

true-Keeps the VPN session up when the user logs off a Windows OS. Caution: If split tunneling is enabled on the group policy and Remote Desktop is enabled on the client PC, users who are not authenticated by the secure gateway and who use RDP to log in to the PC have access to the VPN.

false-(Default) Terminates the VPN session when the user logs off a Windows OS.

Personally I will choose false. Keeping a VPN session up is too risky for PCI compliance.

If you have some insight into this issue

Brian Bargiel forwarded a link to a VMware support article that offers a fix for a networking problem in VMware Fusion. When upgrading to VMware Fusion 2 to version 3, or when upgrading Windows XP to a later version of Windows, networking in Fusion may stop working. VMware says that in both cases it is a problem with the virtual network adapter. The company's solution is to install a new one.

The procedure the article details is to first change your virtual machine type if you've updated Windows from XP. Next, Uninstall and re-install VMware Tools. Finally, remove and re-add the virtual network adapter.

Brian Bargiel said it works:

I had this issue after upgrading my Boot Camp partition from XP to Win 7. This article helped me troubleshoot my broken network connection; perhaps the procedure may be helpful for your readers.

I've you've tried this approch

We've had some previous reports of networking problems with Fusion 3. One reader used a different fix, installing an Intel driver, though he didn't say if it was an upgrade or a clean installation.

Codeweavers has released CrossOver 9.0.1, a maintenance update of the software that enables Windows applications to run directly in Mac OS X, without requiring Windows itself. (Current customers can download the update here.) The update fixes several bugs that could cause Outlook to freeze or crash, as well as improved HTML editing in Outlook, and improved installation of Outlook 2003 service packs. The update also fixes crashes with Access 2000 and Visio 2003 and 2007. Quicken 2010 has some improvements, a fix of performance issues with large files and a fix for a problem importing .qif files. An Internet Explorer 7 printing problem was fixed, and a problem crashing when selection Help was resolved. The update also makes some minor improvements to the CrossOver software overall.

Crossover 9.0, which shipped in March, added a new user interface, a simplified method for installing Windows applications in Mac OS X, and a number of other new features.

Pete reports that waking from sleep mode occasionally causes Windows 7 to crash in Boot Camp 3.1. Things go worse when he installed upgrades to Windows 7. He rolled back the update and things went back to normal:

I have a MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard with all the Apple updates. I installed Windows 7 and upgraded to Boot Camp 3.1. For the most part it works fine, however, every now and then I get the blue screen error after restarting from the sleep mode.

On April 14th Windows did several updates. The next day the program just quit during reading an email. On restart, I got a message that the system had just recovered from a fatal error. Then a couple more crashes and I then I did a system recovery back to before the 14th. I took auto-update off to see what happens. So far, there's just the normal occasional crash in the sleep mode.

If you've seen this issue

Jens Lodholm responded to our article about Apple's announcement that Windows 7 clients and Windows Server 2008 R2 cannot join a directory domain mastered by a Mac OS X Server primary domain controller (PDC). Lodholm found a possible workaround in the Apple forums:

According to a thread on Apple's Discussion boards, I quote:

I have a possible solution for some. It doesn't exactly BIND the Windows 7 machine, but at least you can have users authenticate against your OD servers instead of having OD bound to an AD server.

Step one: Download and install pGina 2.x (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pgina/files/)

Step two: Download the LDAPAuth plugin from same location

Step three: configure pgina with the appropriate ldap settings for your environment. ()

Users can now log in.

I'd be interested to know if this works for anyone. I'm not currently in a position to experiment with this option, but will when I have the chance.

We'd also be interested to know if this works for you. If you've tried it

David Shauger responded to our report about stopping and restarting AFP service on Mac OS X Server as a way to get around AFP problems in Mac OS X 10.6.3 clients:

I haven't seen this issue yet, but I wonder about the AFP stopping and being fixed by restarting. When 10.5 Server came out they had a similar bug and I set up a shell script to run every five minutes that would disable and enable guest access via AFP. That kept the problem from happening. Perhaps that will help in this situation as well.

Information Technology Intelligence Corp is running a survey about Macs, iPhones, and iPads in enterprise. They're giving a way two iPods to people with the best answer to an essay question.

Ann Rittenberg reported seeing the same problem with email from Exchange Server on her iPad that we previously reported for iPhones. Email messages from Exchange Server appeared garbled when viewed from an iPhone or iPod Touch--and now, iPad. Fortunately, Rittenberg also discovered that one of our previously reported fixes for iPhone also works on the iPad. She wrote:

Thank you so much for your 10/6/08 post on your site. I had the problem using Mail on my iPad and used the workaround you suggested of moving sent items to a new folder; all the formerly garbled messages displayed perfectly.

My tech support at 123together.com sent me another article, but I haven't activated this suggestion yet because I'm not familiar with all the gory details of code and I got addled by reading the long thread. I think there's something of use here and will try it when I feel stronger!

If you've seen this issue with an iPad

Peter Kloss sent a report on the effect of the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update on Active Directory-related issues. He, like other readers, verified that the update fixes the problem of saving Office files to servers. He also reported that portable home directories now work for Active Directory-authenticated users. He also sent a link to a new Apple article about problems unlocking a screen saver when using Active Directory credentials.

I am happy to report that 10.6.3 does indeed fix several really annoying bugs in 10.6 integration with Active Directory......Read entire story here

We've received more reports of the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update causing problems with AFP file sharing, including AFP shares disappearing and Finder crashes. Dan Merino confirms the previous report:

With the 10.6.3 Update AFP crashes the Finder, which is unresponsive. I am in living hell with this latest update. My Mac Pro hasn't been stable since I applied the patch. I'm calling Apple to find out how to back out.

Robert Oschwald in Germany resets AFP on his Mac OS X Server to temporarily stop the problem......Read entire story here

Like other readers, Phil McLean was experiencing problems accessing an AFP server with Mac OS X 10.6.3. He made some changes to his Ubuntu server, and all is now well:

I have an Ubuntu file server serving volumes over AFP, have been using it over a year. In Snow Leopard, I am no longer able to access the files after a reboot (I'm not sure when it upgraded to 10.6.3). The volume appears in the Finder, but when I click on it and enter the credentials, it says, "You entered an invalid username or password." I tried repair permissions on the 10.6.3 root filesystem, then a reboot, but the problem persisted.

I re-applied the setup and configuration to my Ubuntu AFP server, and the shares are now accessible from 10.6.3 without changes, so I guess the config on the Ubuntu box got overwritten somewhere. The instructions I followed are from this blog.

If you've tried this

Two technical articles at Stanford University's Mac Special Interest Group describe problems with Mac OS X Server's implementation of SMB with Windows clients, and offer possible workarounds. An article called "Snow Leopard's Samba adds unwanted directives to shares" describes some differences in how Leopard and Snow Leopard handle ACL permissions.

Another article, titled "ACLs not being properly honored in Samba with XP clients," describes the behavior of Mac OS X Server 10.5 with Windows clients. This second article offers a "probably solution," editing the smb.conf file by "adding nt acl support = no." We've reported this before, but it hasn't worked for all readers. The first article describes why this solution may not work with Snow Leopard Server.

If you can shed some light on this

Matty Lynch confirmed previously problems with the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update causing problems with printing and problems accessing AFP file servers. However, simply repairing permissions cleared it all up for him:

I was having the same problem you reported with both issues of printers and a local AFP server. I added printers by IP and still no luck. I could not connect to OS X Snow Leopard Server via AFP ever since the 10.6.3 upgrade. When I restarted there was 2 GB of temp files in the trash that weren't there before the restart.

But I used Disk Utility to repair permissions, and the problem with both AFP and printing is now resolved.

If you've tried repairing permission to resolve these problems with 10.6.3

Rhys Forrester reports that installing the Mac OS X update 10.6.3 disable printing on Macs deployed with the freeware DeployStudio:

We manage printers for Mac via an Active Directory and print through the ksmb client off of DeployStudio. We've just worked out that 10.6.3 overwrites the ksmb client with Apple's own ksmb client which doesn't work. Reinstalling the Deploy Studio copy fixes it straight away.

If you've seen this

Dave Lapointe reports that the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update prevents Windows XP from printing to a shared printer connected to the Mac:

I've encountered a problem with shared printers since 10.6.3 update. Now when trying to print from Windows XP to a shared printer on the Mac I get an "Access Denied" error. The printer sharing is set to allow Everyone to print. I tried removing and re-adding the printer.

When I try to add the printer from XP it no longer shows up on the network. However, if I connect to the Mac through file sharing from XP and log on as an administrator then I can see the printer and add it. But I still can't print to it. The printer also no longer shows up when I attempt to add it from a remote Mac.

If you've seen this problem

Paragon Software has released NTFS for Mac OS X 8.0, a new version of the driver software that enables Macs to read and write to NTFS-formatted storage devices. Version 8.0 adds support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in both 32 and 64 bit modes. It also includes HFS+ for Windows, software that enables Windows to read (but not write to) Mac-formatted storage devices.

The company claims that NTFS for Mac 8.0 is the fastest NTSF driver Mac, and says that it enables Mac OS X to access NTSF devices as fast as it accesses native HFS+ devices. Paragon says that is about 90 megabytes per second for read and write operations.

NTFS is the default drive format for Windows computers. Mac OS X provides only read access to NTFS devices.

Laplink Software has released PCsync 6, a new version of the file transfer and syncing software for PCs. In addition to adding support for all versions of Windows 7, PCsync 6 enables syncing and transferring files and folders between Windows PCs and Macs. The new version also includes a new Mac Migration Wizard that assists users in moving some or all documents, media files, and other data from a Windows PC to a Mac.

The company claims that PCsync is the fastest way to sync files between computers because of its SpeedSync technology that only transfers the portions of files that have changed, and not the entire file.

PCsync can move files over a network connection, or a LapLink USB cable or LapLink Ethernet cable connected between two computers, as well as using USB flash drivers, memory cards, and external hard drives.

the software can backup, mirror or replicate files from one computer to other computers. It can automatically compare and merge files and folders, and can provide unattended, automated syncing between multiple computers running Mac OS X, Windows XP and Vista, and Windows 7.

Equinux has released VPN Tracker 6.2.1, an update to the IPsec-based universal virtual private network (VPN) client for Mac OS X. The new version adds support for Watchguard Fireware XTM-based security devices, including the Firebox X Edge, Core and Peak e-Series and all XTM Series devices. Equinux said that it worked with WatchGuard to develop VPN Tracker 6.2.1. WatchGuard does not provide its own Mac client.

VPN Tracker 6.2.1 contains pre-configured device profiles for the WatchGuard XTM-2, 5, 8 and 10 Series and the firewalls of the Firebox X Edge, Core, and Peak e-Series.

VPN Tracker enables Macs to connect to over 300 VPN gateways from 40 different manufacturers. It is available in a US $99 Player edition, a $129 Personal edition, and a $269 Professional version. An upgrade from version 6.x is free.

A number of readers confirmed Monday's report of the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update causing (and not fixing) -36 errors with SMB file sharing. Rafael Toledo said that the suggestion of adding "streams=no" to the /etc/nsmb.conf file on the Mac fixes the problem in any Snow Leopard build:

This definitely works. We were going crazy trying to find out why the files were showing grey out on 10.6.1/2/3. This fixed the problem. Did not have to reboot......Read entire story here

Wissam Abulhuda reports that the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update causes several problems with AFP file sharing:

I have been experiencing many issues since updating my Mac OS X installation with 10.6.3.

• AFP shares are no longer visible. No issues with SMB/CIFS shares.
• Bonjour/mDNSResponder is not locating printers/afp shares etc...
• Loading System Preferences/Sharing causes Bluetooth and other core components to crash ie. The Finder crashes and shares are dropped, rendering the machine unresponsive.

I wish Apple would stop releasing updates for their customers/users to test.

If you've seen this problem

Mike Sessums reports that updating to Mac OS X 10.6.3 causes the Mac to no longer see the printers:

I'm running into printing issues after the system updated to 10.6.3. My printers disappeared and I can't add them back. They are wireless printers.

If you've seen this problem

Kurt "CoolAppz" updated his previous fix for the problem of Software Update failing with Macs on Active Directory networks. He said that the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update helps, but that the update should be applied before binding the Mac to the domain:

A small update on the issue. I have just bought a new iMac 27", which came preinstalled with 10.6.2. I updated to 10.6.3 before putting it in the domain. This machine does not have this problem......Read entire story here

Ivan Vucica had problems installing Boot Camp drivers, until he removed the third-party LogMeIn display drivers:

I'm using the Boot Camp 3.1 update and found a resolution to an install problem. I had to remove LogMeIn Mirror display driver which ships with LogMeIn software that, at one point, I tested. This is on unibody MacBook (revision Macbook 6,1) on Windows XP with SP2 applied. Also, BOINC (seti@home) had to be turned off.

Other readers have previoulsy reported that removing various other third-party drivers also fixes the problem. If you've tried this suggestion

Sven Gustafsson in Milan, Italy updated his previous report about Parallels Desktop 5 disabling his MacBook Pro battery when running Windows 7. He found some Apple information that was helpful:

Regarding my previous post about Parallels Desktop 5 and MacBook Pro battery disconnection, today, I finally reinstalled a Windows 7 Parallels Desktop 5 VM, and everything worked well on the battery front......Read entire story here

Citrix is now offering iPad users access to their full Windows desktops with Citrix Receiver for iPad, available at the App Store on iPad and at the Apple iTunes store. Citrix Receiver for iPad enables iPad users to operate multiple Windows business applications simultaneously and edit documents from the tablet device.

Like Citrix Receiver for Mac, the iPad version is free and works with Citrix XenDesktop. It works as a thin-client system, with XenDesktop running virtual desktops on a server and streaming the display to iPads running Citrix Receiver.

The company also released Citrix GoToMeeting for the iPad, which enables iPad users to collaborate in online meetings.

If you've tried Citrix Receiver for iPad to access Windows applications what you think.

Sal Castiglione shared a fix for a Snow Leopard problem of only being able to log on to Active Directory with local accounts. (His problem may be similar to this previously reported issue.) The Mac OS X 10.6.3 update didn't fix the problem, but Castiglione found his own fix:

I was having AD issues with OSX 10.6. It bound correctly, but only local accounts could login. Attempting to login with domain credentials resulted in the shaking login window. This was still occurring for me with 10.6.3. However, I found the solution......Read entire story here

Two more readers confirmed that the new Mac OS X 10.6.3 update fixes the problem of saving files from Microsoft Office and Adobe CS4 applications. Nick Carpenter reported:

I can verify that 10.6.3 fixed our SMB issues in a Windows 2008 R2 domain environment (machines bound to AD) for both Microsoft Office and CS4 apps. We previously could not save to the file server from the apps and now can.

Travis Glessner found the same with a storage area network (SAN) device:

We have had this problem since Snow Leopard came out. You could save the Word document one time to the SMB share on an EMC SAN, but if you hit save again, it would say the file was read only. Finally, 7 months later, Apple has fixed the issue. If you upgrade to 10.6.3, MANY problems are fixed, including the SMB Word sharing problem. I have updated three Snow Leopard machines to 10.6.3 and all are now able to update their Word docs on the SMB share to the EMC SAN.

If you've found that the 10.6.3 fixed any of the cross-platform problems we've been reporting

Nick Carpenter sent in a tip to fix slow authentication to Active Directory, on his in a Windows 2008 R2 domain environment.

After we updated to 10.6.3, we were still experiencing longer than normal authentication times to the server. I found the solution for my sluggish authentication issues. I needed to specify our domain in the username when authenticating. After making this change I log in as expected. Seems that specifying the domain speeds up the process.

If you've seen this

Although the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 update fixed some SMB file sharing issues, Glenn Mealey say it caused a new problem:

Since upgrading to 10.6.3 I can no longer write files to my windows server. It gives me permission errors, -36. I can transfer the files using RDC with no permission problems. It was working fine till I upgraded yesterday.

If you've seen 10.6.3 update causing file sharing problems

Helge Rebhan reports that the Snow Leopard 10.6.3 update doesn't fix problems accessing SMB file services. A reported workaround, using an all-numeric password, still works for him:

Unfortunately I got to report that the issue with "numeric passwords only" was not resolved with my setup in 10.6.3. I am connecting to a Linux Samba share and the "NetAuthAgend" process always reports a "wrong password" error. As with 10.6.2 the problem disappears with a numerical password, but I don't like this work-around. Setup: MacPro (2008 Model) with 10.6.3.

Matt Fischer reported that updating to Mac OS X 10.6.3 caused the previously reported problem with SonicWall's NetExtender virtual private network client. He also found that a fix we reported last week solves the problem:

Don's workaround worked great! Thank you so much. I had done the chmod permission change before and NetExtender worked fine. Then I upgraded to 10.6.3 last night. My wife woke up and found that NetExtender no longer worked. I did a net search for issues with NetExtender and 10.6.3 and your site came up and I applied Don's fix and it worked.

I have a question though. How do I go back to changing the chmod permission back to the original settings?

If you can answer Fischer's question, or have tried this fix,

Apple has posted a new support article describing a workaround to a problem with Snow Leopard clients bound to Active Directory. The article describes the problem:

When bound to Active Directory, Mac OS X v10.6 clients may not accept Active Directory credentials to dismiss the screen saver if it requires a password (that is, if "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver" is enabled in the Security preferences pane).

Apple's workaround, described in the article, is to edit the /etc/authorization file using TextEdit.

If you've tried this fix

Sun has released VirtualBox 3.1.6, a minor update to its free virtualization software for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and Solaris. The update fixes a number of bugs and issues that can cause crashes and other problems. (Click here for more coverage of VirtualBox). If you've tried VirtualBox 3.1.6

Apple yesterday released Mac OS X 10.6.3, an update to Snow Leopard that addresses about fifty bugs and issues and includes dozens of security fixes. According to Apple, the update fixes a number of problems that MacWindows readers have been reporting since Snow Leopard first shipped, including those related to file sharing, Active Directory, and Exchange Server. Apple also released a Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 update.

Apple said that the update fixes the problem with saving files to Windows servers from Office 2008, a problem that many readers have reported and offered workarounds. Readers have also reported the problem with the Adobe CS suite, and today, a reader today reported that the 10.6.3 update fixed the problem......Read entire story here

Tommy Birchett reports that the Mac OS X 10.6.3 update fixes the problem of copying files to SMB servers from Office and from Adobe applications:

10.6.3 update fixed our problem with saving Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4 and MS Word docx files to our NetApp server shares. We never implemented any of the SMB workarounds suggested here.

Don shared an alternative to a previously reported workaround for Snow Leopard problems with SonicWall's NetExtender virtual private network client. The original fix uses Unix commands in Terminal. Don said his workaround accomplishes the same but without the command line:

I also couldn't connect using SonicWall NetExtender v3.5.632 after upgrading my MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard. Since I'm not comfortable with Terminal, and our IT guys were Gone For The Day, I tried Josh Carlson_s tip and Downloaded and installed the latest version of NetExtender from the SonicWALL website using these simple steps...
...Read entire story here

Two readers wrote with differing responses to the tip Fix for Mac OS X connecting to Win XP as a non-guest. One verified it, and the other ran into a problem and poses a question for our readers. The tip worked for Alfred Reinold Baudisch:

I've tried one of your site's fix for connecting Macs to Windows as a non-guest, and it worked pretty well. This after I searched around almost every Mac site and tips. Thanks a lot for it.

Phil Gates had a problem with the procedure in Windows XP Home......Read entire story here

Chris Neely responded to our report of Snow Leopard clients losing Active Directory binding, saying that he sees it on Leopard clients as well. His workaround is different than that of the previous report:

I have had this problem for quite some time dating back to 10.5. Although, I only started having this problem when we moved to Windows 2008 server. For me this problem really only is noticed when a users AD password is about to expire and they attempt to change it. Rebinding fixes until the next time they try to change their password. Happens with my 10.5 and 10.6 clients. Very strange because not all clients experience this even though they are all configured exactly the same.

If you're seeing this problem

Yesterday, Microsoft has released a public beta of Microsoft Messenger 8 for Mac. The new pre-release version is the first chat client for Mac OS X that can do audio and video chat with Windows Live Messenger 2009. The software works with users of with a Windows Live account.

The beta version has some limitations. For instance, it doesn't yet support file transfer to contacts. Micrsoft KnowledgeBase article 927847 lists firewall ports that need to be open to enable various features to function. Microsoft said that it will release the finished version of Messenger 8 for Mac with Microsoft Office 2011 later this year.

PocketMac, Inc, has released PocketMac for BlackBerry 5.0 (US $20), a major new version of the Mac-to-BlackBerry syncing tool. The new version features a simplified user interface, a new faster sync engine, new Snow Leopard drivers, and support for recently released BlackBerry devices.

PocketMac for BlackBerry 5.0 provides two-way syncing between the device and Apple Address Book, iCal, Entourage 2008, LotusNotes, Daylight, iPhoto, iTunes, and Stickies.

PocketMac for BlackBerry also will automatically back up the device's SMS messages and call history and store the data on the Mac. A Mac viewer application enables access to this data from the Mac.

A company called MokaFive has created a technique called "virtual layers" to selectively manage pieces within virtual machines running on Mac, Windows, and Linux workstations, without affecting other portions. While VMware and other virtualization products let users revert a virtual machine to a previous snapshot, the MokaFive Suite lets users and administrators selectively roll back the operating system, IT-installed applications, or user-installed applications, all without touching the user data and settings in the virtual machine. Administrators can also update, add, or remove specific components in multiple users' virtual machines......Read entire story here

Kurt "CoolAppz" sent us a workaround to the Snow Leopard problem on Active Directory networks where Software Update fails when trying to install an update. Kurt uses Terminal install an update:

My iMac, running Mac OS X 10.6.2, connected to a Windows 2008 SBS Active Directory, also exhibits the same issue with Software Update. It starts, but then closes and nothing else happens. This is with an administrator-enabled account on the Mac. Strange thing is, I just reinstalled my Mac OS. Before the reinstall (also using 10.6.2) I didn't have this problem.

I have a workaround, though. I start Terminal and run the following command:

sudo softwareupdate -i -a

This installs the software updates without a problem. I also confirmed that logging on as a local administrator also works.

Hopefully, Apple will fix this problem soon as it is quite annoying. I now check Software Update using the GUI, and if I see there is an update, I run the Terminal command.

If you've tried this suggestion

Mark McNeil finds that his Snow Leopard iMac clients lose their Active Directory binding. He has to two temporary fixes:

I'm having problems with OS 6.2 "unbinding" from Active Directory (Windows Server 2003). We have 15 iMacs running OS X 5.8 that we have no problems with being bound to AD. We also have 15 MacBooks with OS X 6.2 and they are constantly "unbinding" from AD. To correct the problem I need to log in as the local administrator, unbind and then rebind to AD. That fixes the problem until the next restart or after a certain amount of time goes by. The other fix is to delete the kerberos.mydomain.plist and restarting the DirectoryService.

I am running two Windows 2003 Active Directory servers. They are also my DNS and WINs servers. One is the DHCP server. On the Macs I am just using the Directory Utility to bind them to the domain, which is sspp.local.

If you've seen this problem and tried these workarounds

Eltima Software's SyncMate Expert 2.5 (US $40) is syncing software that can sync a variety of data with Macs and Windows Mobiles and Google Android devices, as well as with Windows PCs and other devices. It is also the only solution that can sync email between Macs and Windows Mobile devices.

Macs running SyncMate can also sync with another Mac, a Nokia Series 40 phone, a Sony Playstation Portable (PSP), and with a USB flash drive. Users can sync with all of these devices and computers simultaneously, via USB cable, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth, depending on what the device supports......Read entire story here

Two readers had different experiences on the using Network Service as the owner as a fix for the problem (described here and here) where Macs can't save a file to a server a second time after saving it once. (The fix is also described here.) Steven Ahmet had success:

I too can verify that adding the "NETWORK SERVICE" user as the owner of the top level folder of a share on a Windows 2003 Server, then applying that to sub-folders and files, fixed the problem. I was specifically having this issue with 10.6.2 and Photoshop CS3 and CS4 attempting to save any type of file for a second time. Applying the solution fixed the issue straight away.......Read entire story here

Sven G. reports that the latest build of Parallels Desktop 5, disables his MacBook Pro battery, when running Windows 7. This is a problem that readers reported in 2007 with earlier builds of Parallels Desktop. Sven tried the suggestions on our Parallels Tips and reports page, and was able to get the battery working:

I was experimenting with creating a 32-bit Windows 7 virtual machine in my MacBook Pro 2009 with Parallels Desktop 5 build 9344 (the Italian localized version), and suddenly, incredibly, I found hat Parallels had disabled the battery indicator in the Mac OS X menu bar (and, thus, the battery itself): it had a cross on it instead of the battery symbol, and thus was also completely unavailable.......Read entire story here

MrCyberdude wrote to report a video problem with Windows 7 in Boot Camp, and shared his workaround:

I found that Windows 7 in Boot Camp 3.1 changes the iMac 27" screen to 16-bit color, even when 32-bit is selected. This can be seen as a halo effect across the screen. Interestingly enough, the 2nd connected monitor is not affected. This can be demonstrated nicely by dragging a picture back and forth from screen to screen.

The latest ATI Catalyst driver 10.2 does not fix this. But if you manually upgrade the graphic card driver in Device Manager and point it to the Boot Camp 3.0 ATI folder, all looks good again. I have not had any noticeable issues thus far.

If you've seen this issue

Related page: Boot Camp 3 Tips and Reports

Gorski is seeing the Snow Leopard problem of saving a files to Windows Server from Office 2008, where after the initial save the file becomes read-only. He thought it was fixed with the recent Office update, but the fix was fleeting:

I just patched my Office to 12.2.4. For a bit, I could open and save Word .doc and .docx files on my Windows server, but I can't recreate the success now. Microsoft and Apple work in mysterious ways.

We've previously posted several suggestions from readers to workaround this issue. One was to disable autosave/autorecover. Another was to change the NTFS owner to NETWORK SERVICE. A third involved using Terminal to change permissions of a particular folder.

MacTech Magazine has posted a video showing a side-by-side comparison of Parallels Desktop 5 and VMware Fusion 3 running gaming benchmark tests in Windows virtual machines running on two Apple notebooks. Parallels Desktop is shown as fully rendering several games, with VMware Fusion only partially rendering several scenes. The YouTube video also shows Parallels Desktop 5 running Windows games at a higher frame rate than VMware Fusion 3.

MacTech used the 3DMark06 benchmarks from FutureMark. The video shows Windows virtual machines running Firefly Forest, Canyon Flight, and Deep Freeze.

Last month, MacTech published benchmark tests results of the two virtualization products for Mac that showed that Parallels Desktop 5 was the faster of the two for most tasks in both Windows XP and Windows 7 virtual machines.

This week, Apple announced that Windows 7 clients and Windows Server 2008 R2 cannot join a directory domain mastered by a Mac OS X Server primary domain controller (PDC).

In a tech support article entitled Mac OS X Server: Cannot join Windows 7 to a Mac OS X PDC Domain, Apple says there are no workarounds to the problem. It links to a Microsoft support article that says that Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 no longer support to Windows NT 4.0 SP6A domains, which is what Mac OS X Server provides to Windows clients......Read entire story here

Darrin Jackson had a problem where Macs on his network could connect to a Windows XP as guests for file sharing. All computers were on an AirPort network. His fix involves unchecking "Use simple file sharing" in Windows, among other things:

I was having trouble connecting my Windows XP PC to my Mac OS network (I'm using Leopard 10.5.8 and Snow Leopard). I searched the web, your site came up, but nothing worked. I googled to my fingers got sore.

My Mac would only allow me to connect to my PC as guest. No matter how many times I've changed the username. I even tried the all-numeric password tip and the port 139 tip with no success. But the solution was actually simple......Read full story here

JAMF Software has released Casper Suite 7.2, a new version of its cross-platform client management tool. The new version, which JAMF previewed at Macworld Expo, unifies the reporting of Mac software products in a single console using a feature called Extended attributes. The new version also adds the ability to create and upload .plist files for Mac clients and have them be enforced as a managed preferences in Workgroup Manager. Casper Suite can create managed preferences that will appear in Apple's Workgroup Manager for Mac OS X Server.

Casper Suite 7.2 simplifies the administrator console and adds wizard-like assistants to simplify distribution and reporting. There's a Policy Assistant to manage printers, scripts and software packages, and a Setup Assistant to make it even easier to get started with Casper Suite, and LDAP Assistant to integrate with directory services.

Casper Suite supports Windows clients with two of its major features, managing inventory control and software licensing.

Yesterday, Microsoft released updates to all of its Office applications. The updates are Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition 13.0.4, Office 2008 for Mac 12.2.4, Microsoft's Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.8, and Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.1.4. The updates fix security holes to protect against malware.

The update for Office 2008 also includes some improvements for Excel 2008, including fixing issues that cause Excel to unexpectedly quit and to incorrect format imported text. It also improves performance of print drivers in Snow Leopard.

Open XML File Format Converter is a free utility that can convert newer Office formats (.docx, .xlsx, and .pptx) to the older formats (.doc, .xls, and .ppt).

Parallels, Inc. today released Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac Build 9344, an update that enables Macs run Google Chrome OS in a virtual machine. Google Chrome OS is a lightweight, Linux-based, open source operating system designed to run web apps for certain x86 and ARM netbooks and tablet PCs. Chrome OS is in the early stages of development; Google has said that it will release the first stable version later this year.

Parallels Desktop 5 Build 9344 also includes improvements and fixes when running Windows and other operating systems in virtual machines...... Read entire story here

Infoworld has published a comparative review of Parallels Desktop 5, VMware Fusion 3, and Sun VirtualBox 3.1. The review has three sections: Where Parallels Beats VMware, Where VMware Beats Parallels, and Where VirtualBox Falls Short.

Citrix today released Citrix Receiver for Mac, a Mac version of free client for the company's new XenApp 6 server. The software enables Mac users to run Windows applications as a service over a network or the Internet. Citrix describes the system as streaming a Windows desktop to the client Macs from a XenApp server. The company said that the Windows applications appear as if they were installed on the Mac. Users can drag a Windows application to the Mac OS X Dock.

Last month, Citrix announced that it would release a Citrix Receiver for iPad, allowing iPad users to run Windows applications. Citrix released a Citrix Receiver for iPhones last summer, and there are BlackBerry and Android versions as well.

IT managers in large enterprise organizations believe that in several areas, Macs are less expensive to maintain than Windows PCs, according to a new survey released by the Enterprise Desktop Alliance. The survey data was collected from 260 IT administrators from organizations that had 50 or more servers or over 100 Macs.

In all maintenance categories respondents said that Macs were cost less to or were equal to Windows PCs. More than half of the respondents said that Macs cost less to troubleshoot, to configure, and to provide help desk calls. Forty eight percent said...... Read entire story here

Steve Humiston responded to our report More reports of losing Admin privileges with mobile accounts by sending in an AppleScript that he uses to work around the issue:

do shell script "rm -R /Library/'Managed Preferences'/`users`/com.apple.systemconfiguration.plist" user name "root" password "whateverrootpasswordis" with administrator privileges

Although I don't know why it happens, I just know the mobile account still uses that managed .plist. Once removed the user is free to use the machine as they'd like...... Read entire story here

Christopher Sokolov replied to TIP: Fix for Macs in Active Directory "file is locked" error, with a cautionary question:

I appreciate the work on this serious problem including the suggestion about changing ownership. I suppose I'm "stuck" psychologically on calling this a fix -- can't/doesn't this break the whole schema of ownership/permissions on Windows servers?

If you know the answer to this

Equinux has released VPN Tracker 6.2, an update to the IPsec based virtual private network client for Mac OS X that supports hundreds of VPN gateways. The new version adds support for the Cisco ASA 5500 series of adaptive security appliances, and will work in a Cisco Dynamic Multipoint VPN (DMVPN) setup. The company said that the new version also improves compatibility and connection speeds with other Cisco devices as well.

Chris Wood reports problems syncing a Blackberry smart phone with Entourage 2004 and 2008. Every 8 hours, he winds up with duplicate calendar items:

I recently upgraded my BlackBerry to a Curve 8900 which required me to use the new BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac. In exploring this sync problem with BlackBerry they concluded that it was between the OS (Snow Leopard) sync services and Entourage. At the time I was using 2004, which was not universal binary code and thought this was the problem so I upgraded to Office 2008. The problem still exists...... Read entire story here

Today, CodeWeavers shipped CrossOver 9, a major new version of the software that enables Windows applications to run on Macs and Linux without using Windows itself. Version 9 includes a new user interface that simplifies the installation of Windows software directly in Mac OS X. CodeWeavers said that, in many cases, users can install a Windows application with a single click. It also improves support for Microsoft Office for Windows and Outlook, among others.

A new feature is the addition of "recipes," (also called "C4 Profiles"), which are XML files that simplify the installation of Windows applications... Read entire story here

Parallels has released Parallels Server for Mac Bare Metal Edition, a new edition of its server virtualization software for Mac. Unlike the previously released Parallels Server for Mac, the Bare Metal Edition doesn't require a host operating system. The hypervisor is installed directly on the Mac hardware, and server operating systems run in virtual machines. The Bare Matal Edition can run multiple Windows and Linux servers and Mac OS X at the same time. Although there are "bare metal" hypervisors available for server platforms, Parallels' new solution is the first for Apple hardware. Parallels said that the software is optimized for Apple's Xserve and will run on the Mac Pro as well... Read entire story here

Two readers responded to last week's report Mac OS X 10.6.2 issue with mobile accounts ("Allow Administration by"). Gabriel Preston reported some more symptoms:

I am experiencing this problem as well. When connected to the work network I can authenticate and have full access to my Mac. When at home and not using my work network, I cannot do anything requiring Administrator privileges; can't install applications, make changes to system settings, etc. I am on OS X 10.6.2

Tony Trumbo has also seen this with Leopard:

We have seen the same issue that was mentioned on MacWindows regarding computers losing administrator access when not on a network with access to a domain controller. However, we have seen this issue with every version of 10.5 on our network. We also lose managed settings when those machines are not able to access our Xserve. We haven't figured out if it is something to do with our “Golden Triangle” configuration or something else.

If you've seen this

Travis Glessner confirm a problem and workaround with Snow Leopard clients bound to Active Directory and Software Update:

I tried to run software updates logged in as my active directory account and the updates never install. I logged out and logged in as local administrator and it worked. Thanks for the tip.

If you've seen this

Jukka Lindgren of Helsinki, Finland, confirmed that a problem preventing Boot Camp 3 drivers from installing has to do with multiple display drivers. In this case, it was one left by VNC remote control software. Readers have previously sent in suggestions (click here and scroll down). Lindgren has another:

I had the same problem, "The installer encountered errors before Boot Camp could be configured." I checked the Device Manager, and found two display adapters there. The extra one was "mv display adapter" left by VNC remote access software. Noteworthy is the fact that the adapter remained in the system even though VNC was uninstalled and system rebooted....Read entire story here

At Macworld Expo, Centrify released DirectControl 4.4 for Mac OS X, an update to the software that integrates Macs and Unix computers into Active Directory domains. The new version adds supports more group policies for Macs and adds several new features, including support for FileVault, support for Common Access Cards (CAC) smart cards, and better integration with Group Logic's ExtremeZ-IP...Read entire story here

See also our complete coverage of the top cross-platform announcements of Macworld Expo 2010.

Jim Myers verified a fix for a problem where Active Directory Macs could not save a file to a server a second time after saving it once:

I tried this fix and it worked perfectly - I've been having this issue for months, thanks! I have 10.6.2 and CS4.

If you've seen this

Chris Ellis confirmed a fix for the Snow Leopard problem of saving Office files to Windows servers in Active Directory networks:

I can confirm that changing ownership of the SMB share on Windows Server 2003 to NETWORK SERVICE solves the issue for my network where I have Macs bound to Windows Active Directory.

However, others have reported less success with this suggestion.

Ryan Miles reports a problem with problem with mobile accounts and Snow Leopard:

I'm Running 10.6.2 bound to Active Directory. Mobile accounts, which should have local "administrator" access revert to "standard" users when systems bound to the domain, do not have direct access to the domain (i.e. system is away from the office network). However, once a network connection with direct access to the domain is re-established (e.g. connected via VPN or back in the office), the mobile account is once again granted local "administrator" access. 10.6.2 does not appear to be caching this information to allow the mobile accounts to remain local "administrators", when a direct domain connection is no longer available.

This does not appear to be a problem with 10.5.

If you've seen this problem

VMware has released VMware Fusion 3.0.2, a maintenance update to the virtualization software for Mac OS X. The update addresses a problem with running Mac OS X 10.6 Server in a virtual machine.

John Lockwood in the United Kingdom verified a problem where the modification dates of Office files change when files are opened on a Windows server. The original report was with Snow Leoaprd. However, Lockwood sees this with Tiger:

I have seen this problem with Mac OS X 10.4 and later clients, with Office files (both Word and Excel) on a Mac OS X 10.4 and later server. This was with Office 2004 for Mac. It seems that Office 2004 11.5.6, with Mac OS X 10.6.2 client and Mac OS X 10.6.2 Server might not do this anymore, but a Mac OS X 10.4.11 client does.

If you've seen this problem

In Part 2 of our Macworld Expo cross-platform roundup, we cover several enterprise and networking announcements from recognizable names and from lesser-known developers. Some of these products we've never covered before, such as Likewise's Active Directory integration tool for Mac and JAMF's client management software. Like everything we report, these tools help people use Macs and Windows PCs together.

• Kerio Connect 7 ships with new name, new Distributed Domain
  Last week Kerio Technologies shipped Kerio Connect 7 a major new version of its cross-platform groupware server, formerly called Kerio Mail Server. The new version adds support for multiple servers working as a distributed domain cluster: multiple servers in a single domain. It also adds CardDAV address book synchronization for computers, support for new mobile devices, and other features... Read entire story here
• Likewise AD integration for Mac demos at Macworld
  Likewise Software demo'd its Active Directory integration software for Macs and Linux clients at Macworld Expo last week. The company offers two versions, a free Likewise Open, and the commercial Likewise Enterprise. LikeWise has an Active Directory plugin for MacOS X, which, like Apple's plugin, provides for Kerberos, NTLM, and SPNEGO authentication and single sign-on. The Enterprise version offers group policy management of Mac and Linux/Unix clients...Read entire story here
• JAMF previews Casper Suite 7.2, cross-platform client management
  At Macworld Expo last week, JAMF Software showed off the next version of its cross-platform client management tool, Casper Suite 7.2, set to ship in March. The software runs on Mac OS X and manages many aspects of Mac clients, but can also supports Windows clients with to of its major features, managing inventory control and software licensing...Read entire story here
• Fujitsu puts Mac and Win in new portable ScanSnap doc scanner
  At Macworld Expo, Fujitsu introduced its new ScanSnap S1300 portable document scanner, which, for the first time, will include Mac and Windows support in the same product. Formerly, Mac OS X and Windows versions were available only as two separate ScanSnap products. This enables an owner to move the 3.1 lbs scanner between a PC and a Mac...Read entire story here

  If you missed it, see Part 1 of our Macworld Expo cross-platform report, including the Office 2010 preview and Outlook for Mac, and others.

Apple may be only a memory for Macworld Expo, but developers big small used last week's venue in San Francisco to show off products that enable Macs and Windows PCs to work together.

The biggest announcement came from Microsoft, which revealed details of the next version of Office for Mac and announced that the focus will be compatibility with Windows. IBM announced that it was joining the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, and showed off a new beta of its Lotus Sympony 3 suite. Other developers for the enterprise and for small and medium business also announced new versions of products for integrating Mac and demonstrated existing products.

Here's the first part of our coverage of Macworld Expo cross-platform announcments:

• Office 2011 to focus on Windows compatibility; Outlook Mac gets .PST
  Compatibly with Windows is the major focus of the next version of Office for Mac, a Microsoft spokesperson told MacWindows. At Macworld Expo last week, Microsoft also announced the name, ship date, and some of the features of the next version for Office for Mac, dubbed Office 2011...Read entire story here
• IBM joins the Enterprise Desktop Alliance
  IBM announced on Thursday that it has joined the Enterprise Desktop Alliance (EDA), a group of enterprise software developers collaborating to promote integration and management of Macs Windows IT environments. IBM is the largest company to join EDA, which includes Absolute Software, Centrify, Group Logic, and Web Help Desk...Read entire story here
• IBM previews Louts Symphony 3 Beta 2 office suite
  Macworld Expo attendees got a chance to view the Beta 2 version of IBM's free Lotus Symphony 3 for Mac office suite, which the company released earlier this month. Lotus Symphony is based on the Open Office suite, but with additional features unique to IBM. Version 3 includes support for VBA Macros...Read entire story here

Brent Brodowski wrote in response to our reports of problems with VMware Fusion 3 Migration Assistant. His sent us his fix:

The trick I learned for migrating a PC instance to a VM on Fusion is this: Setup static IP addresses on both machines on their twisted-pair interface (cable) in the same network, with the same subnet mask. Confirm you can 'ping' from one to the other, and vice versa. The Mac will find the PC, as long as the VM Migration Agent is running on the PC. Also, I learned I had to remove any CF or SD cards that are in the 'memory booster' mode within Vista - VM Fusion will give you a general error that it doesn't support VSS when the imaging process begins.

If you've tried this approach

Jonathan Bailey had success with an AutoDesk tip for getting around AutoCAD licensing issues with Boot Camp. Bailey was using a Boot Camp partition in a virtual machine with Parallels Desktop:

I have been trying to get AutoCAD working on my MacBook Pro. I am using a Boot Camp partition and also Parallels set up to use the Boot Camp partition as a virtual machine. This is hopefully the best of both worlds. I had issues with the licensing of AutoCAD and came across your site while trying to find a fix. I wanted to update you with what helped for me, which is a suggestion from the AutoDesk site.

I was getting a license error message that never mentioned the fact that my serial never changed from 000, etc. I probably would have known to try this if I had been familiar with Vista or Windows 7. Thankfully I had not used up all of the online activation requests and was able to change the serial and re-activate the software successfully.

If you've tried this

Mark/Space just released Missing Sync for BlackBerry 2.0.4, a free update to the Mac OS X syncing utility that adds support for phones running BlackBerry OS 5.0 or later. This includes recently released BlackBerry phone models including the Bold 9700 and Storm2 9550, as well as models that users have updated to BlackBerry OS 5.0, such as the Curve 8900. The Missing Sync for BlackBerry can wirelessly sync contacts, calendars, music, notes, and other data.

Users can install the update from the phone, using the Missing Sync application, using the Check for Update function in the About item. For BlackBerries not connected to the Internet, users can go to this Mark/Space support page and download the software from a Mac.

Troy Hunter is seeing a problem where the modification dates of Office files change when files are opened on a Windows server:

When connected to Windows Server 2003 shares via SMB, our fully updated 10.6 machines exhibit wonkiness. If you open anything that can be opened in Office 2008 (Powerpoint, Excel, Word) and immediately close it, the "Date Modified" changes, even if no changes were made. Simply opening the document changes its modification date, something that can drive someone whose job it is to do version tracking absolutely insane. This does not happen for TextEdit.

If you've seen this problem

Rich Vuduc verified a previously reported fix for Snow Leopard problems accessing Windows printers. This fix edits the printer.conf in /etc/cups/. Vuduc said:

Regarding Michael Bentley's tip, Another fix for Snow Leopard issues with Windows shared printers, just letting you know that the tip worked like a charm!

If you've tried this workaround

Rufus verified a previously reported fix for speaker problems in Boot Camp 3 and Windows 7:

With reference to your February 3 News update about Boot Camp and speakers on Windows 7, I had the same problem on my iMac and I installed the Realtek High Definition Audio Driver from their website. The version number is 6.0.1.5983. This has worked fine for the last 3 weeks.

If you've tried this fix

Softhing is now offering Entourage Time Machine (US $30), new Mac OS X software for backing up, restoring, and exporting Entourage email messages. The software enables a user to search and browse backed up email, which is also searchable by Spotlight. Users can also read backed up email and open attached files. Entourage Time Machine can export selected email messages as a .mbox file.

Citrix will enable iPad users to run a virtualized Windows 7 desktop on Apple iPads when the tablet ships in March. Citrix said it will ship Citrix Receiver for iPad, which will work with Citrix XenDesktop. The system will work as a thin-client system, with XenDesktop running virtual desktops on a server and streaming the display to iPads running Citrix Receiver. The company said that the setup will enable iPad users to operate multiple Windows 7 applications simultaneously. Multitasking apps is something the first iPads won't do natively. Citrix currently has a Citrix Receiver for iPhone users, which is free for customers of XenDesktop and XenApp.

Dave Hetherington confirmed a tip last week to fix the problem of Snow Leopard -36 errors. The suggetion is to add "unix extensions = no" to the smb.conf file (or settings) on a Linux server or Mac OS X Server. Hetherington said "We have previously done this on our machines and it works!"

We've also recently posted a variation of this, which is to add "streams-no" to the nsmb.conf file on Snow Leopard clients.

Rod Miller is experiencing the problem of external speakers not working with Boot Camp 3. Unfortunately, a previously reported suggestion didn't work:

My speakers don't work either. I just installed Windows 7 Pro using the latest Boot Camp. Everything is working perfectly except for my Altec stereo speakers. I can barely hear sound at a very low volume with them cranked all the way up. The speakers inside the iMac work fine. When I boot into Mac OS X my satellite speakers work great.

I tried going to Realtek and downloading and installing the 64/32 driver and the 32-bit driver with the same result. I downloaded the latest Boot Camp from Apple last week and then I followed the instructions given at MacWindows on how to download the new Realtek drivers.

If you've seen this problem

James Pennells in the United Kingdom has a problem with Software Update in Snow Leopard on bound to Active Directory similar to the previously reported problem, but it started with Mac OS X 10.6.2:

I just wanted to say that I also have this issue. I am running a 2.2Ghz MacBook Pro, which came with Leopard. I decided to do a fresh install of Snow Leopard, all went well. Connected to AD, still fine. Software Update worked up to 10.6.2, but now Software Update just disappears from my screen when I click Install updates.

If you've seen this

Apple released a set of Boot Camp updates aimed at officially supporting Windows 7 and at fixing an incompatibility between new iMacs and Windows 7, specifically the bug that causes the screen to go black when installing Windows 7. The updates include several versions of a general Boot Camp 3.1 update (which addresses several issues), a graphics firmware update for iMacs and Mac Pros, and Windows 7 drivers for iMacs. Apple also provided directions for applying the upgrades to fix the Windows 7 black screen problem. Specifically, these are the updates...
...Read entire story here

Parallels has released Parallels Desktop 5 Build 9310, a maintenance update of the virtualization software for Mac OS X. The company said the update improves performance of Windows in virtual machines, and addresses issues on Nehalem-based iMacs and Mac Pros. (See Parallels Desktop Tips and Reports for more on Parallels.) If you've installed this update (See Parallels Tips and Reports for more Parallels Desktop issues.)

CodeWeavers has released CrossOver 8.0.3 for Mac, maintenance update the software that enables certain Windows applications to run natively on Mac OS X, without using Windows. The company said the update fixes some issues with Internet Explorer 6 and 7, fixes some minor Snow Leopard issues, and improves sound on the Mac. CrossOver Mac is US $40, and does not require you to own a copy of Windows. If you've installed this update (Read more about on this topic at our CrossOver Reports page.)

Equinux has released VPN Tracker 6.1 (US $99), a new update to the general-purpose IPsec-based VPN client for Mac OS X, which supports dozens of VPN gateways from a variety of manufacturers. The new version adds support for the SonicWALL TZ 100 and TZ 200 UTM appliances aimed at small to mid-sized businesses. The update simplifies configuration for several gateway devices.

VPN Tracker now includes Mode Config support for additional VPN gateways and has greater interoperability with a range of othenr devices, thereby making it simpler to configure and administrate Macs in a virtual private network.

Chris Nowak responded to our report TIP: For Snow Leopard AD login issues, use upper case domain regarding solving Active Domain login issues by using uppercase domain. Nowak has an explanation:

For the folks for whom uppercasing the domain works, I bet they're using Kerberos for authentication. When you setup realms manually for kerberos you keep the realm name all uppercase. You can see the relationship documented in this Microsoft Knowledgebase article.

(For more on this subject, see Snow Leopard and Active Directory Tips and Reports.)

Cheers Reuben send in another solution for resolving the Snow Leopard problem saving files to Windows file servers. This problem occurs when saving a document within Word. Reuben's fix involves Terminal:

I recently found a solution to this problem I've been having with Office after upgrading to Snow Leopard. Create a new folder on your server. COPY (not move) a folder with your work into this new folder. Use Terminal to change the permissions of the folder you copied, (by default I had no access whatsoever)...
...Read entire story here

David S. verified a suggestion of editing the /etc/hosts file on a server to workaround to Snow Leopard problems logging into Windows file servers:

Yes, this works. Annoying, but I don't have a WINS server on the LAN, so it's the way to go.

If you've tried this

Four readers responded to SMB Windows browsing still slow in 10.6.2, with tales of slow browsing as well as slow file transfer with large files in Snow Leopard. Callum Spence reported:

Regarding Slow Snow Leopard SMB connection to Win server, this is a very frustrating bug in 10.6. I have a large amount of data saved on a Windows server that I continuously access and each time I open a different folder it takes 10-25 seconds to show the contents...
...Read entire story here

William Smith wrote an AppleScript (downloadable here) that solves the problem of messages sent from iPhone to Exchange appearing garbled in Entourage. He also posted an explanation at the Microsoft Entourage blog:

While browsing the web I came across your page about the iPhone/Exchange Sent Items problem where messages sent from an iPhone appear as garbled text in Entourage.

I posted an entry about this on The Entourage Help Blog in August 2008 that explains why this happens and under what circumstances. I also posted an AppleScript to allow folks to read these messages and others (in the comments) have taken the script further and automated the process so that users don't need to see this anymore.

You'll find my post here: "Use AppleScript to read ActiveSync Sent Items in Entourage"

If you've tried this

J. D. West expanded on a previous suggestion that works in recovering Entourage email that is deleted with a database rebuild:

Came across this and have just experienced the EXACT same thing. User got a "Database corrupt, need to rebuild" type message. Ran the rebuild, took several hours. Next morning I came in, all mail and contacts were DELETED from the Exchange mail server.

As suggested by Joshua Bierman on your page, we went into Outlook->Tools Menu->Recover Deleted Items, and they were there. Something in the sync process clearly triggered a delete command on the Exchange server...
...Read entire story here

Michael Antolovich in Australia found a solution to a problem where Windows 7 won't boot in VMware Fusion 3.0.1 from a Boot Camp 3 partition. He said the problem only happens on his iMac:

I have a 24" iMac running Snow Leopard 10.6.2, VMware Fusion 3.0.1 and Windows 7. Win 7 runs happily when booted from it, but complains that it must be repaired when running under Fusion 3.0.1. Repairing doesn't help, of course: "A patch is preventing the system from starting," but it won't say what patch. It still runs OK when booted directly from it...
...Read entire story here

Recently, readers have reporting slow performance of VMware Fusion (versions 2 and 3) in Snow Leopard, but not in Leopard. We've offering suggestions, and several have now told us that the suggestions help, and have offered suggestions of their own. Here's what we recommended for the virtual machine:

• Set the number of CPUs to two (instead of one)
• Keep the RAM at the recommended VMWare recommend value (512 MB for Windows XP, 1 GB for Windows 7. (More RAM is not necessary better in a virtual machine.)

Bill Reed read reported success with this. His original report...
...Read entire story here

Mark Coplowe is seeing the problem moving a Windows installation from a real PC to a virtual machine using VMware Fusion 3's Migration Assistant. His symptoms are somewhat different than what we've previously reported:

I have had a similar problem migrating an XP (SP3 and all the latest patches). The iMac sees the PC and can detect/acknowledges the code etc. When it is going through the process of determining the time to create the virtual PC it comes up with a message: Error in creating Virtual Machine. System preferences >> Security >> Firewall . Disable firewall when migrating your PC.

The firewalls on the Mac and the PC have always been disabled. Having tried numerous options including allowing share guest folders and disabling all anti virus and pc firewall, I am still none the wiser.

If you've seen this problem

Lawrence Devonport said that he is still seeing long launch times of Parallels Desktop 5, even after installing the recent Build 9308, which is supposed to have fixed the issue. Devonport reports:

I have installed the update and I can safely say that the slow launch problem is not fixed. I have completely removed the Parallels files and re-installed from scratch only to find the same result. Also there are significant delays in launching the configuration and menu options for the Desktop. That said, once the Desktop and VM are started the performance does improve. Incidentally I run Windows XP in the VM. I have a MacBook 1.07 GHz with 4 GB RAM, Mac OS X 10.6.2.

If you were seeing long Parallels launch times and have applied Build 9308

Or Raitses responded to A fix for Windows 7 wireless drivers on a MacBook Boot Camp 3:

Great Job! It worked like a charm! Keep up the good work!

Sam is happy with Sun's recent update to VirtualBox, a free virtualization application:

I've been running VirtualBox 3.1.2 on two Snow Leopard machines (one MacBook that is 64-bit capable and an Intel iMac that is only 32-bit) for a few weeks with no major issues. I do recall some flaky behavior, but nothing major.

what you think of VirtualBox and the recent updates. For more of our coverage of VirtualBox, see VirtualBox Tips and Reports.

Bernard Furiet is using Chubby Bunny (a build of SheepShaver), software that enables Mac OS 9 to run an Intel Mac. He's having a problem printing:

I installed COI Chubby Bunny successfully on my MacBook Intel. But my only goal is to use Apple Printer utility in order to switch from AppleTalk to IP my LaserWriter 16/600 communication protocol, to be able to use it with Snow Leopard I use. But unfortunately, even if the application for PPC appears in "Unix" folder for OS9, 9it appears as a document, not an application. Has it to be installed?

If you know the answer

Note that this Chubby Bunny build uses an older version of SheepShaver. A newer version is available here.

CodeWeavers has released CrossOver Games 8.1.4 (US $40) for Mac and Linux, an update to the software that enables Mac OS X and Linux to run Windows games natively, without Windows. This maintenance update fixes some issues with Left 4 Dead 2, an issue with Guild Wars and certain ATI graphics chipsets, and an issue with World of Warcraft. If you'ved tried CrossOver Games

CodeWeaver also offers a standard version of CrossOver, which is optimized to run Windows business applications. (See also our CrossOver Reports page.)

Dustin Good found that last week's suggestion to fix Snow Leopard problems accessing network attached storage also works accessing an SMB Linux file server. The fix involved adding a line to the device's /etc/smb.conf file. Good reported:

The tip worked for me. Though I was having a problem attaching to a Samba server on an Ubuntu box, the symptoms were identical.

If you've tried this approach

Andrew Rowe, who reported the tip last week, said in his report "Writing files now creates files with proper Windows ACLs instead of just Unix permissions and error code 36 is no longer occurring."

A reader named Chazz reports that the new Parallels Desktop 5 Build 9308 fixes some problems with the Coherence and Crystal modes:

Not sure if it speeds up the launch but it did clear up problems I had with using Coherence/Crystal on my iMac. It runs great now. Plus I am running a very memory resource intensive XP trading program in Crystal that I had to boot up in Boot Camp to run at all. So I think it is doing something with speed and capacity. However I do get a message that says I don't have enough video memory but won't let me add more video memory however I don't notice anything. As a matter of fact I can't change any video settings. But am happy because I can run my trading software without having to close out Snow Leopard.

The new build is also supposed to fix the problem of slow launches that readers have reported. If you've tried Build 9308

Two readers reported success with using a second monitor to get around problems installing Windows 7 on new iMacs with Boot Camp 3. (See problem description here.) They also offered some additional advice. Gary Wayland said:

I too just purchased a new 27" iMac. After having the same problems with the boot up getting the black screen while loading Windows, I followed the thread of hooking up an additional monitor. Using a 27" Apple monitor that's running my Mac mini, the second monitor worked fine. Now your can continue the Windows installation. As soon as you get online the driver will download on the first update from Microsoft......
...Read entire story here

More readers reported success with removing a Windows driver as a workaround for black-screen problems installing Windows 7 on iMacs in Boot Camp. John Murray added some details of his experience that may be helpful:

After you have deleted the driver from the command prompt by typing in DEL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ATIKMDAG.SYS, I hit return and the command prompt window told me that this driver was not found. Therefore, I knew it was successfully deleted. From there I closed the window and clicked the restart button. Now, at this moment, you have to eject your Windows 7 64x DVD or else......
...Read entire story here

Parallels released Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac Build 9308, a maintenance update for the virtualization software for Mac OS X. The company said that the update fixes the problem of slow launches of the application, which MacWindows readers have been reporting. The update also includes several dozen fixes and improvements with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X Server guests OS's...
...Read entire story here

Sun released VirtualBox 3.1.2, an update to the free virtualization software for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and Solaris. The update fixes bugs for these hosts, including for 3D video on Mac OS X. Sun calls 3.1.2 maintenance, whereas it referred to the previous version 3.1.0 as a major update. (See also Sun's change log page, and our VirtualBox Tips and Reports.) If you've tried VirtualBox 3.1.2

The U.S. Court of Appeals has ordered Microsoft to either remove an XML editor from new copies of Word 2007 by January 11 or stop selling the software in the U.S. The court also upheld an award of $290 million in damages to a Toronto company called i4i LP, which won a patent infringement suit against Microsoft last August. Microsoft lost an appeal in Tuesday's decision.

Microsoft said it will remove the feature in time to meet the deadline, and has been planning for the possibility of the ruling since August. The company has also released a patch for Office 2007 for use by OEMs. Microsoft's OEM Partner Center describes it:

The following patch is required for the United States...After this patch is installed, Word will no longer read the Custom XML elements contained within DOCX, DOCM, or XML files. These files will continue to, but any Custom XML elements will be removed.

Copies of Word 2007 sold before 2007 are not affected by the decision.

Andrew Rowe found a solution to the Snow Leopard problem accessing network attached storage (NAS) via SMB. He added a line to the /etc/smb.conf file to clear the problem up:

Our Snow Leopard upgrade was experiencing was an issue with an SMB connection to a samba-based NAS device (Snap Server 410) joined to a Win2k domain. When the Snow Leopard Macs are bound to Active Directory trying to write files to the NAS device results in the "Error Code -36" message many have seen. A 0-byte file is created...
...Read entire story here

Peter Kloss questioned Monday's suggestion for fixing Snow Leopard file browsing problems with SMB servers. The suggestion was to use a Microsoft patch that disabled SMB 2.0. Kloss doesn't like this approach:

I have serious concerns about the logic and quality of the suggested fix "Microsoft security patch fixes Mac file browsing issue with Vista, Server." The problems with this are:

This is not a 'patch' at all - just a 'switch' for conveniently disabling and enabling SMB 2 to temporarily disable it.

The 'patch' is old from September, and MS issued a proper fix which allows SMB 2 to work properly in October, MS 09-050...
...Read entire story here

A Microsoft security update for Windows 7 and Vista and Windows Server 2008 enables Mac OS X to browse for file shares on those systems, according to a reader. Peter Goddard reports that the security patch turns off SMB 2.0, enabling Mac OS X from Tiger to Snow Leopard to browse. An ArsTechnica article describes the patch in terms of plugging a security hole, but Goddard said it fixed file sharing browser on all his Macs...
...Read entire story here

Michael Bentley used Terminal to edit his Mac's printer.conf file to fix Snow Leopard problems accessing Windows printers. Previously, we reported a suggestion to remove AuthInfoRequired from the printer.conf file. Bentley took a different approach, changing the line "LPD://[IP Address of Windows Box]" to "smb://username:password@[ip address of windows box]/[Printer Share Name]." Bently said:

I ran into this today and was able to fix it with a bit of hacking printer.conf in /etc/cups/. I blogged the fix here.

If you've tried this fix

Two readers report that VMware 3 is running slow on Mac OS X 10.6. Tim Donovan:

VM Fusion 3 on an IMac Intel Core 2 Duo w/8 GB ram (early 2009) runnIng Vista is slower than molasses in January in northern Canada. Mac OS X 10.6.2 is lightning fast.

Eric Adint said, "I have seen really slow performance with VMware 3 on Mac OS X 10.6."

If you've seen this problem

Jim Lockwood is seeing the problem of Windows 7 not loading on iMacs. This is a known bug, and we have reported workarounds (here and here). However, Lockwood is also seeing this in VMware Fusion:

I just got the iMac 27". I have same problem. I'm also can't load Windows 7 under VMware Fusion 3.0.1. (I'm kinda new to the Mac world. I'm an old PC user.)

If you've had problems with iMacs, Windows 7, and VMware Fusion

Thorsten Kling is seeing the problem of long Parallels 5 launch times, but found that it launched quicker after force-quitting.

After a couple minutes of the virtual machine not coming up and nothing happening with Parallels being unresponsive, I force closed it. When restarting Parallels, the virtual machine window came up immediately. And I really do mean immediately, not that it started quickly...
...Read entire story here

Several readers responded to the workaround we reported on Monday for the Snow Leopard problem saving Office files to SMB servers in Active Directory environments. Randy Tamura reports success with the workaround:

I tried the work around of making the owner "NETWORK SERVICE" and it worked for me. I tried both xls and doc files and they both saved to the SMB directory and also to subdirectories of the shared directory. I'm running 10.6.2 on the Mac and WinServer2003...
...Read entire story here

VMware has released VMware Fusion 3.0.1, a free maintenance update of the virtualization software for Mac OS X on Intel Macs. Many of the improvements address version 3.0 performance issues, as well as over 50 bug fixes. These include improved 3D and video performance (up to 80 percent in Snow Leopard, according to the company), through a new WDDM driver and 3D "backend improvements." It also fixes slow performance caused by older VMware Tools and the Virtual Machine Library. Other improvements include...
...Read entire story here

Chuck Tryon sent a report on the new VirtualBox 3.1 release, particularly the Teleportation feature, which enables you to move a virtual machine while it is running:

I was just looking around for some pointers regarding VBox 3.1, which I JUST downloaded and installed today, largely because of the "Teleportation" feature. I've been using it for quite some time on a Linux host, mostly to run a Windows VM, but also for testing things. One BIG consideration to mention is the fact that you need to have...
...Read entire story here

Marcus Jaensson told us about Diffiss, a free Mac OS X DFS client that enables Mac users to access Microsoft's network-based Distributed File System (DFS):

Just wanted to make a tip about an application: Diffiss is a DFS browser for Mac OS X. DFS is, as you all may know, not supported in Mac OS X and if you want support, there are a few third party solutions, but they are a bit pricey.

So Erik Aderstedt at Aderstedt Software made Diffiss, a simple browser that presents the DFS tree on a given server and then mounts the DFS share in the Finder. You can read more about it here and download it for free (but please show your appreciation and donate).

If you've tried Diffiss

The Enterprise Desktop Alliance is conducting its second annual web survey on cross-platform integration, to gauge how Macs are doing in enterprise networks. Last year 75 percent of respondents planned to increase the number of Macs in your organization. The survey asks if organizations actually did increase their Macs in 2009.

Chris Eads reports that a procedure he sent in last week also works to fix the Snow Leopard problem of saving Offices files to SMB servers on Active Directory networks.

I've verified the Office saving issue is resolved with the fix I found for the Adobe suite. I tried saving files out of office 08 to a non-mac-friendly share, and then on of the one's we've changed the NTFS owner to NETWORK SERVICE, and doc, docx, xls, xlsx files save fine. Tested on both 12.1.0 and 12.2.3.

If you've tried this approach

Paul Koch has a problem with iCal and Exchange Server 2007:

I am having trouble configuring iCal so other Exchange users can view my calendar. I am using iCal in Mac OS X 10.6.2. The company is running Exchange Server 2007. My Exchange e-mail works and Exchange calendar invitations work. Going through iCal > Preferences > Accounts > Delegation > Edit, my password is accepted. But then I do not see a list of Exchange users to which I can delegate access, and any new names...
...Read entire story here

Nathaniel Bentzinger is having a problem with the Cisco VPN client not resolving IP addresses. We've previously had reports of this issue with Leopard. Bentzinger is seeing this with Snow Leopard:

We have this issue here with Snow Leopard 10.6 through 10.6.2. Our Cisco 2811 router provides DHCP Address, gateway, DNS IP and search domain (domain.local) and they are properly loaded into the Apple Cisco VPN client but the Mac sends all DNS lookups to the en0 en1 interface's DNS servers. Only adding lines to your /etc/hosts file will resolve the internal servers which defeats the purpose of DNS entirely. We are still using Cisco's VPN client to connect to the office.

If you've seen this problem

Absolute Software has acquired LANrev, LP, maker of LANrev systems asset tracking/management software for Windows, Mac OS X, and iPhone. Absolute Software is rebranding LANrev as Absolute Asset Management, which will be sold as an add-on term license for new and existing Computrace customers and as a standalone enterprise solution. LANrev is one of the member companies of the Enterprise Desktop Alliance, which promotes solutions that integrate Macs into enterprise environments.

Chris Eads described a problem he was having with Macs in an Active Directory domain, where the Macs could not save a file to a server a second time after saving it once. He also sent us the fix. The problem is sounds similar is some ways to the issue problem of saving Office 2008 files to SMB servers on an Active Directory network. Here is Eads' report: After spending a few days on this one, we figured it out...
...Read entire story here

Mark Ahlers offered a workaround to problems migrating a PC into a virtual machine in VMware Fusion 3:

I have has this same issue with the migration issue in Fusion 3. The work around was to connect the PC directly to the Mac via Ethernet and configure static IP Address. At that point the migration worked perfectly.

If you've tried this

Mike Bliss reported a problem and a fix with Windows 7 and Boot Camp 3:

I have a MacBook (2006) running Windows 7, and experienced a number of control panel crashes by navigating a few categories (back and forth) and then get a Windows Explorer error. This is related to two control panel items from Boot Camp 3 (Intel graphics cpl item and the IDT audio cpl). The fix is to remove these two files from the C:\windows\system32 folder - idtcpl.cpl and igfxcpl.cpl. No more control panel crashes!

If you've seen this problem and tried this fix

We have five more reports on the Snow Leopard bug that prevents users from saving Office 2008 files to SMB servers. (AFP servers do not have this problem.) Krister Laag has a theory. Like some other users, Laag sees this only in Active Directory domains:

It appears that only Macs that are bound (and restarted) to the AD gets the problem (I have not tried when the user at logon is authenticated to the AD). When looking at the permissions of a file on the SMB share (from the Mac client), the local users name is in the permissions profile and not the credentials used to log onto the share...
...Read entire story here

Two readers confirmed a fix for a Boot Camp 3 problem with Windows 7 wireless network access. James Lee reports:

I discovered the same problem as Steve Ballard had when installing Win 7 64-bit using Boot Camp 3. I try the solution provided by Steve and my MacBook is now working well: Select Broadcom 802.11n (Broadcom) in the device drivers list.

Andre Naime agreed, "Yep, did exactly how you said."

Ekow Budu-Amoako verified a fix for the problem installing Windows 7 in Boot Camp on iMacs. He used a second monitor:

The workaround for iMac/Win 7 bug using a second display worked perfectly for me. I managed to install Windows 7, and then updated drivers on the second display and my Mac screen turned on my 27-inch iMac.

If you don't have a second monitor hand, try this tip for removing a video driver to fix the problem.

Two readers commented on last week's report on slow launch times for Parallels Desktop 5. Richard Wilson had the same problem:

The Parallels 4 on the install disk worked fine. But since the version 5 update I've had a very similar problem to Ralph from Germany. It takes about 3 minutes to launch for me, though.

So did Garfield Southall in the United Kingdom

I too have this problem. It can take up to 10 minutes to launch, before I can select the virtual machine. I have tried the support line but they have only suggested removing and reinstalling Parallels 5, which I've done to no benefit.

If you've seen this problem

Ramsey Umar agress with a previous reader report about moving virtual machines in VMware Fusion 3:

I have had the exact same problem as Chris Heuer. Cannot get Migration Assistant to talk to my PC. Tried everything Chris did and more.

If you've seen this problem

There are bits of Mac OS X in Windows. But there are also bits of Windows in Mac OS X. I went back over ten years to find the origin of some common features that are now in both operating systems and found some surprises. Some stolen ideas are blatant copies of the features of the other side. Some are merely concepts, implemented in a completely different way...
...See the slideshow here

Sun has released VirtualBox 3.1, an update to its free virtualization software for Mac OS X (Intel Macs), Windows, Linux, and Solaris hosts. The new version includes several new features and several dozen bug fixes. A unique new feature is Teleportation, the ability to move a virtual machine over a network from one VirtualBox host to another -- while the virtual machine is running. The two host computers can be different operating systems, such as a Mac and a PC. This is a feature that is unique...
...Read entire story here

Several readers report on their success with a suggested workaround for problem with running Windows 7 on new iMacs in Boot Camp 3. The workaround is to work from a second display. Previously, Robb Rinard almost had the answer, but couldn't get it to work. Gary Tussey got it to work by adding a new step...
...Read entire story here

James Hastings-Trew had success with the procedure for deleting a driver to fix problems with running Windows 7 on Boot Camp 3 on iMacs:

I tried this tip from your Boot Camp 3 Tips page and it worked like a charm. Thank you! Saved me ages of grief.

However, it did not work for Neil Bowen:

I tried doing this and it said that the driver did not show up. A matter a fact, everything I try doesn't seem to work.

If you've tried this, please how it worked.

Steve Ballard reports a problem with Boot Camp 3 where Windows 7 could not access a wireless network. Luckily, he also sent us a fix:

I have the new MacBook (the one that came out on October 20, 2009) and I have Windows 7 installed, but the wireless wouldn't work and I couldn't find a solution anywhere on the web but it appears that a number of people have this problem. But I managed to fix it, what I did was I right clicked the network adapter......
...Read entire story here

Benjamin Delagoutte in Paris has a problem similar to a previously reported issue of display problems with displaying PowerPoint in Windows 7 in Boot Camp 3:

Same issue for me. Running Windows 7 on Boot Camp 3.0 with my MacBook Pro 13" Nvidia 9400M. No matter the projector, I'm only able to select 640x480 resolution. I'm using Mini-DisplayPort-to-VGA adapter from Apple. Very annoying. PowerPoint works fine when booted from Snow Leopard, however.

If you've seen this, please

Kris Van de Vijver in Belgium reports slow performance with Fusion 3 and Windows 7 installed on a Boot Camp partition:

I've always been a happy Fusion 2 users, I used it with a Win Vista Boot Camp partition and with XP vm's. Performance was very fast. Recently I decided to remove my Vista Boot Camp partition and replace it with Windows 7 64-bit. When booting In Windows 7, it works fast and great. I installed all Boot Camp 3.0 drivers and didn't have any problems. After upgrading to Fusion 3, I tried running the Windows 7 Boot Camp partition as a virtual machine but I was shocked by the terrible performance......
...Read entire story here

Apple has released Boot Camp Drivers Update 2.2 for Windows XP and Vista SP 2. The update adds support for the Apple Magic Mouse and wireless keyboard from within Windows. Apple said also fixes problems with the notebook trackpads. We've previously posted reports of the multi-touch trackpad causing Vista and video apps to crash. The update appears to be only for the Boot Camp version that comes with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, since it requires Boot Camp 2.1 (not 2.1 or later) to be installed. Snow Leopard comes with Boot Camp 3.0.

If you've tried this update if it fixes the trackpad problems.

A number of readers agree with a previous post that the Mac OS X 10.6.2 update does not fix the Snow Leopard problem with saving Office 2008 files to SMB servers. (We've previoulsy posted one suggested workaround.) Rocky Spain describes the issue...
...Read entire story here

Although one reader previously reported that the 10.6.2 update fixed his problems with file sharing, Stephen Graham still has the problem. His workaround is to use the command line in Terminal:

I've only ever used OS X on and off over the years so I'm no expert in these things, but I've found the attempting to connect to a Windows/Linux SMB share from the Finder 'Connect to Server' dialog doesn't work. I have tried all of the solutions offered here, but none have worked for me. However, I have found that I can connect if I setup the connection via the command line...
...Read entire story here

Tom Waterhouse in the United Kingdom reports that the Snow Leopard 10.6.2 did not fix a problem with slow access to Windows servers:

Although 10.6.2 fixed Windows server browsing for some, my problem still remains after the update. I've had full access to our Windows servers here since 10.6, however compared to 10.5 performance was very poor. Every now and then the Finder (or any application trying to access the server) will pause, appearing to be waiting to reconnect to the server.

Paul Nast is having the problem with Software Update on Mac OS X 10.6.2 not working with on Active Directory networks:

I am also having the AD/Software Update problem on Snow Leopard 10.6.2. It works when I login with a local OS X administrator account.

If you've seen this problem

Apple released a Server Admin Tools 10.6.2, and update to its suite of tools for managing Mac OS X Server 10.6 remotely from another Mac. The update, which requires 10.6.2 to be installed on both Server and Remote Mac, fixes a number of bugs in Server Admin, Server Preferences, Server Assistant, Workgroup Manager, System Image Utility, and Xgrid Admin.

CodeWeavers has released CrossOver Games 8.1 (US $40) for Mac OS X and for Linux. CrossOver Games is software that enables Macs to run Windows games, without Windows or a Microsoft license. The new version adds support for Left4Dead 2, the sequel to the popular Left4Dead game. CrossOver Games 8.1 also fixes a number of bugs, including a problem in Snow Leopard with registering CrossOver, and some other Snow Leopard tweaks. The new version also fixes bugs with Guild Wars and...
...Read entire story here

Apple is planning to fix bugs with iMacs and Boot Camp 3 and Windows 7 by the end of the year, according to Raymond Cranfill, who said that he heard it from an Apple Support representative. He also said that some previously reported suggestion of deleting a video driver didn't work (though some have reported success). Cranfill's report...
...Read entire story here

Several readers report success with the workaround for the problem of running Windows 7 on iMacs with Boot Camp 3. They all used a suggestion for removing a Windows video driver. John Voss added some detail:

I used information on MacWindows website to get around the problem of a black screen in the final installation of stage of 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium (the problem on your website listed as "Windows 7 won't run on new iMac--vga.sys driver doesn't load"). I used the approach suggested by Tierry Theil.

At the stage where the black screen appeared, restarted and booted directly off the Windows 7 installation disk. Then I used the Repair Computer option to get to a command prompt and deleted the file...
...Read entire story here

David Higgins solved a problem with the new Parallels Desktop 5 and its activation key:

Initial install of Parallels 5 went smoothly, but I was having issues with my Windows install inside Parallels (failure of the Windows disk). So, I decided to 'clean' thing sup and uninstalled Parallels. I then did a reinstall and Parallels 5 Activation key would no longer...
...Read entire story here

Ross Bevan is seeing a problem similar to one we reported two years ago with and upper case character in a virtual machine in Parallels Desktop. It appears to be some sort of keyboard mapping issue:

I have the same issue but for me it is with typing uppercase "B" (I have to sue the same procedure of use the caps lock key to obtain a capital "B"). I tried the suggestion of deactivating Sticky Keys but to no avail; the problem still exists. In fact if I type Shift B in any program, including the Finder, the folder containing the Virtual Machine file opens...
...Read entire story here

Unlike some readers, Mark Kennedy got Windows 7 to run in Boot Camp on a new iMac, but prefers VMware Fusion 3.0:

I installed Windows 7 on Boot Camp on a new iMac. It works fine but there's no driver support so Magic Mouse won't work. I then installed Fusion 3.0, which recognized my BC partition. Unfortunately, Microsoft Office needed new activation codes even running on the same machine, same OS, same partition. It's fast and fully functional for most uses. Can't see the advantage of Boot Camp unless you want to play games and can wait for the drivers this DEC.

Chris Heuer likes the way Windows 7 works in VMware Fusion 3, but is having problems with bringing in Windows XP with the Migration Assistant:

I am wondering if anyone else has gotten this migration assistant to work properly - in the forums I only see people complaining about it not working. I have an old Windows XP PC I was going to replace with a Dell, but it was such a pain to deal with...
...Read entire story here

Brehe Clinton had good results with a tip for getting Windows 7 to run with Boot Camp 3 on an iMac:

Regarding your article 3 suggestions for Win 7 not booting on iMac, I tried tip number 3, and it was exactly what I needed.

If you've tried this

Ken Seattle was running Windows 7 in Boot Camp 3 until he ran PowerPoint--then it broke:

I know the marching orders are that Apple won't support Win 7 with Snow Leopard right out of the box, but I took the plunge and upgraded Snow Leopard and Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Pro. My machine is a 13 in MacBook Pro and everything seems to work well until I went to present a PowerPoint this week! Yikes...
...Read entire story here

Chris Ryan starting having problems with Entourage and Exchange when he upgraded Safari:

It may be coincidental, but on Mac OS X 10.6.2, the Safari 4.0.4 update appears to have broken Exchange support not only in Mail.app and iCal but also in Entourage. I would hold off on this update until this becomes clear. I have our IT department looking into it.

If you've see this issue

Although there were indications that the Snow Leopard 10.6.2 update might fix problems with Office apps saving files to SMB file servers, Antonio Luis Duarte still sees the problem:

We're having same issue. Can't save any Office 2008 file on a volume shared, even with 10.6.2 and the last update of office 12.2.3. We've tried...
...Read entire story here

On Monday, Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.2, an update to Snow Leopard that includes a long list of bug fixes, including several Windows-compatibility issues that readers have been reporting. These include problems with Active Directory, Entourage and Exchange, virtual private networks, and AFP file servers. Apple said the update also fixes a bug that caused data loss with guest accounts.

Apple said that the update includes fixes for the following issues, many of which we've previously reported...
...Read entire story here

Dieter Schüle reported that installing the Snow Leopard 10.6.2 update fixed his problems with browsing and accessing Windows servers:

I would like to tell you my experiences with Mac OS 10.6/10.6.1 and 10.6.2 and network shares from Windows Server 2003/Windows Server 2008/Windows 7.

1. With 10.5, there have not been any issues accessing file shares from Windows Server 2003/2008/Windows 7.
2. With 10.6/10.6.1, connecting to the file shares on Windows Server 2003 and Windows 7 was no longer possible...
   ...Read entire story here

Although Apple said that the Mac OS X 10.6.2 update fixes a problem with mobile accounts in Active Directory, readers are reporting that other Active Directory problems persist. John Thayer still has one problem with Snow Leopard after the update...
...Read entire story here

Group Logic has released MassTransit 6.1, its high-speed, high-volume managed file transfer and workflow server for Windows and Mac OS X clients. The new version adds a number of features, including web portal interface for occasional users of the software and a redesign interface for advanced users. It also adds automated Active Directory-driven account provisioning and management, support for a Linux web client, and other "enterprise infrastructure" features...
...Read entire story here

Readers reported mixed results with a previous suggestion for fixing a problem with iMacs booting from Windows 7 in Boot Camp. It worked for William Sonntag:

A quick email to say this tip for black screen on 27" iMac with Windows 7 worked perfectly for me. Thanks!

The suggestion didn't work for Bill Milligan, who ended up using a virtual machine...
...Read entire story here

Wiley Publishing today began shipping Snow Leopard Server for Dummies by John Rizzo (US $30, or $20 from Amazon) a 432-page book that simplifies the installation, configuration, and management of Apple's new Mac OS X 10.6 Server software. The book describes how to support Mac and Windows clients for file sharing, email, and directory services, and the other of Snow Leopard Server's services, including the new Address Book Server and Podcast Producer. Other topics including incorporating a Mac subnet into a Windows Active Directory domain, managing Mac and Windows clients, and configuring security options.

Wiley has also posted the Snow Leopard Server for Dummies Cheat Sheet, a reference for some of the things you need to know while installing, configuring, and managing your server.

TIP: Dual display drivers can prevent install of Boot Camp 3 drivers

Glen Berry's instant messaging programs stopped working in Boot Camp 2.1, but work in VMware Fusion:

I have a Mac dual booting Windows XP with Boot Camp and Mac OS X10.5.7, occasionally running the XP Partition as a VM with VMware on OS 10.5.7. Seemingly out of the blue, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Chat and Skype all stopped working when I am in the Boot Camp XP environment...
...Read entire story here

Randy Simon had a good upgrade experience with the new Parallels Desktop 5:

Upgraded from Parallels 4. Upgrade is easy and automatic. Takes very little time. Implementing the new features is either automatic or one-click easy. This includes the Mac Look for the Windows apps, the new Crystal interface, the Windows app folder on the doc, etc. All the features on my Magic Mouse now work in Windows applications. No problems whatsoever so far.

If you've tried Parallels 5 or VMware Fusion 3

Sarah Townsend in Hawaii was having problems printing from both Mac OS X and from Parallels Desktop 4. She found some information that helped on the Mac side:

It worked for a while, sort of, using the workaround of turning off the printer between each time I'd switch printing from the Mac to the VM. The Mac side would just sit, saying it's printing, then stopping the print job for no reason. Sometimes if I open the print queue and select that print job and hit Pause Printer then hit Resume, it will jolt it into printing...
...Read entire story here

Marco Novelli in Italy verified the fix for the problem of Entourage Web Services Edition seeing Exchange mail as plain text:

Thanks -- you saved my day with the tip: Set-remotedomain -> ContentType should be set to "MimeHtmlText" not to "MimeText".

If you've tried this

Eric Gatten echoes previous reports and fixes about frequent corruption in Entourage databases:

I have also seen the Entourage problem that John Underhill described on May 18, 2009. The client site is using an Exchange server. With the exception of a couple of clients, all the rest of my clients are not using an Exchange server and they are not experiencing this problem.

I have also had to delete the user's database and/or create a new user. The database sizes range from 1.8GB to 9.4GB. It appears that size does not matter.

Just days after VMware released Fusion 3, Parallels today released Parallels Desktop 5 (US $80, $50 upgrade), a new version of its Mac OS X virtualization software. New features include support for Windows Aero features, Apple track pad gestures in Windows apps, and a new screen mode called Crystal. A Parallels spokesperson also said that Parallels 5 runs faster than VMware Fusion 3, and graphics performance that is seven times faster than Parallels 4. It also now supports 64-bit Snow Leopard hosts and 64-bit Windows 7 guests.

Support of Windows 7 and Vista Aero features, such as Aero Peak and Flip 3D, is enabled with support for DirectX 9.0c/9Ex Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.1 Windows WWDM. The company said that Linux guests will also see improved graphics performance due to Open GL 2.1...
...Read entire story here

Thursby Software Systems today released ADmitMac 5.0 and DAVE 8.0, upgrades to Mac OS X networking software for Windows Active Directory and file- and print-sharing compatibility. The new versions now run in Snow Leopard in both 64-bit and 32-bit mode. ADmitMac 5.0 also adds the ability for Windows administrators to manage Macs running ADmitMac using Windows group policies, without requiring anything to be installed on Windows servers or management stations...
...Read entire story here

Marcus Jaensson solved the problem with Entourage Web Services Edition seeing Exchange mail as plain text:

We had this problem and it's a setting on the Exchange Server:

Set-remotedomain -> ContentType should be set to "MimeHtmlText" not to "MimeText".

Micrsoft has some information here. Scroll down to ContentType.

If you've tried this suggestion

An Apple support article states that Apple will support Windows 7 in Boot Camp by the end of the year, presumably fixing many of the problems MacWindows readers have reported. However, Apple also says in the article that it will not support Windows 7 in Boot Camp on several iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro models released in 2006.

Although MacWindows readers have reported running Windows 7 in Boot Camp with (and without) some minor issues, we have reports of Windows 7 not booting on iMacs, appear the result of a video driver issue. We have a number of reports today on this issue.

Three readers sent in suggestions for video driver problems with booting Windows 7 in Boot Camp 3 on an iMac. One was to run a repair computer option during the boot process. Another saw the problems on a real PC. A third said only 64-bit has the problem, that 32-bit Windows 7 works fine. Terry Thiel sent a precedure for fixing driver issues with Windows 7 in Boot Camp 3 on iMacs...
...Read entire story here

Mustafa Gokhan Uzunbas can't install Boot Camp 3 drivers in Win 7 on his new iMac:

My iMac goes to blue screen and reboots during Boot Camp driver installation. I just got a new iMac 24 inch 3.0 Ghz, 4 Gb RAM. When I want to set up Boot Camp for Windows 7 it crashes and restarts. It crashes during Boot Camp driver installation.

It seems that most of the drivers including ATI graphic cards are all installed, however Coprocessor (in device manager) and Boot Camp itself are not installed properly.

If you've seen this problem

Five more readers report success with adding port 139 to the SMB file sharing logon (smb://share:139) as a workaround to problems with Snow Leopard accessing SMB servers. One reader said it didn't work. Tyler Gingrich reported:

Snow Leopard "139" SMB server access tip port trick worked once but after I unmounted the drive, can't get it mounted again.

It did work for Scott Ficek, however... ...Read entire story here

Kyle reports success with using a numeric password to fix Snow Leopard problems accessing network attached storage (NAS):

In regards to your helpful page I used numeric passwords on my western digital NAS and it worked.

Jürgen Kirkovits discovered that using an umlauted character in an SMB user name gave him a "wrong password" error in Snow Leopard. Removing the character fixed it:

I had a problem with connection to shared directories from my Snow Leopard MacBook to a Windows 7 PC as well. I recently re-installed my HTPC ("updated" from Win 7 RC to final), but chose a different username (Jürgen instead of JK). I started getting a "password incorrect" error when trying to connect to my shares (which worked with Snow Leopard before the new Win 7 installation).

I just then a new account named 'JK' and it works! So I can definitely confirm that Snow Leopard has issues connection to SMB-shares with special characters in the user name. Hope that Apple fixes that soon!

If you've seen this

Yesterday, VMware released VMware Fusion 3 (US $80), a major new version of the virtualization software for Mac OS X. The new version improves CPU and graphics performance for Snow Leopard hosts and Windows 7 guests. It also can automate OS migration from a real PC into a virtual machine, and further integrates Windows applications into the Mac OS X interface.

VMware Fusion 3 is notable as the first product that can run the Windows 7 and Vista Aero 3D graphics features of on a Mac. This includes the Aero theme and Flip 3D and the new Aero Peak feature--the full Windows 7 experience on a Mac. Fusion 3 is also the first Mac virtualization product to support Microsoft's DirectX 9 Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.1, making it a better environment in which to run PC games...
...Read entire story here

Yesterday, VMware released updates of its virtualization software for Windows hosts--VMware Workstation 7 (US $189, $99 upgrade) and VMware Player 3 (free). VMware Workstation goes far beyond the capabilities of VMware Fusion, and adds a host of new features aimed at enterprise IT and software developers, and can even run a virtual machine inside a virtual machine. Player 3 adds the ability to create virtual machines. Previous versions of Player can only run virtual machines.

Like the Fusion 3 for Mac, VMware Workstation 7 and Player 3 now support the Aero 3D graphics features Windows Vista and Windows 7 guest OS's. But Workstation 7 also supports the Aero Peak feature in a Windows 7 host OS. Aero Peak displays a preview window of what's going on in the virtual machine when you hover the cursor over the taskbar item for Workstation 7...
...Read entire story here

Today, for the first time, VMware updated its entire desktop virtualization line for Mac and Windows together, and share some of the same technologies. VMware Fusion 3 for Mac OS X, and Workstation 7 and Player 3 for Windows all share some of the same new features. This includes support for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 guests. VMware Fusion 3 and Workstation 7 also support Windows 7/Vista Aero 3D graphics inside of virtual machines. The beefed-up graphics comes in the form of support for DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0 3D graphics and OpenGL 2.1...
...Read entire story here

Almost exactly 8 years after releasing Windows XP, Microsoft released Windows 7 last Thursday. Windows XP is the operating system on 80 percent of personal computers worldwide, according to Forrester Research. eWeek reports that a survey by the research firm says that most corporations plan to replace Windows XP with Windows 7. Microsoft plans to end support for Windows XP in April of 2014.

Previous MacWindows reports show that betas of Windows 7 ran fairly well on Macs. Windows 7 runs in Boot Camp 3 (which comes with Snow Leopard) as well as in a virtual machine using Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, and Sun VirtualBox. Windows 7 even runs on the old Virtual PC 7 on Power PC Macs. Of course, there are glitches. We'd like to hear about your Windows-7-on-Mac glitches and tips, so please

Wheat Williams reports that Windows 7 users are seeing problems accessing Apple's Time Capsule network attached storage device:

I can't get Windows 7's Backup (built-in Microsoft software) to recognize an Apple Time Capsule as an NAS for backup. Others are having related problems as detailed at the Apple discussion forums.

Apple recently released a firmware upgrade for the Time Capsule and now they've released a whole new rev of the hardware, and of course the final release of Windows 7 came out on Thurday, so maybe things will change if Microsoft and Apple are attentive.

If you've seen this problem

Robb Rinard can't get Windows 7 to boot on a new iMac with Boot Camp 3. He found that the vga.sys isn't loading:

I purchased a brand new 27" iMac today as they unloaded them off the truck at Best Buy. It's the version with the ATI video. I ran Boot Camp 3 and split the 1TB drive into to 460GB partitions and Windows 7 installed cleanly with no problems. When it rebooted and was starting Windows for the first time (finishing the installation), I see the Windows red/green/blue/yellow animated logo for ten seconds, then the screen goes black and it hangs infinitely...
...Read entire story here

N. LaFleur found that installing Realtek drivers in Windows fixed a problem with speakers not working with Boot Camp 3. He warns that the reader who first reported the problem has probably been lead to fake Realtek drivers:

I had the same issue with my MacBook Pro (Late 2007 model which originally shipped with 10.4, but the Apple reps put in 10.5 DVD after launch). Realtek doesn't charge for their drivers. The reader likely searched for "Realtek Drivers" and went to a bogus website (probably a sponsored link on Google)...
...Read entire story here

Mediafour has released MacDrive 8.0.4, an update to the Windows utility that enables Windows to read and write Mac-formatted media. It works within Boot Camp, to enable Windows to read and write to the Mac OS X partition. The update fixes several bugs:

• System crash incompatibility with multiple Antivirus products
• System crash when a VHD file is mounted
• CD/DVD drive not detected on some system configurations
• Administrator installation command-line option for automatic activation
• Minor improvements and revisions

Jason Kuo reports that Entourage Web Services Edition (WSE) can't see private events:

We've got an issue with private events not being viewable with Entourage Web Services Edition (13.0). We have Exchange 2007, and all clients running Entourage 13 and 10.5.8. With Entourage 12.2.1, people are able to see that another user has a private event, labeled "Private Event." This is true for both Leopard (10.5.8) and Snow Leopard (10.6.1). However, with Entourage 13.0 WSE, people cannot see private events...
...Read entire story here

Brad Carter reports success using the form smb://share:139 to overcome file sharing problems in Snow Leopard:

I have a friend that has two Mac mini's and the one with Snow Leopard quit connecting to his PC. I had him append port 139 to his PC's address in the Connect to Server dialog and it connects. Thanks for the tip on your site.

Two readers confirmed the workaround of using smb://share:139 to log into an SMB server from Snow Leopard, to get around file sharing problems. Jordon Cheung said "Just wanted to say a quick thanks for writing up the below tip. It worked like a charm!"

Serge Rose agreed, "I tried workaround and it works great."

If you've tried this

Tom Foth confirmed this workaround for Snow Leopard problems with slow network attached storage access:

SMB access to an Linksys Unslung NSLU2 NAS was incredibly slow with Snow Leopard. I deleted all of the .DS_Store files and the slowness went away.

If you've tried this

Marco Junge from Germany confirmed the Snow Leopard problem of saving Office files to Windows servers:

I have got installed a SBS 2008 and ,what a luck, I only updated one client to test. The following things I did:

• Upgrading to Snow Leopard
• Office 2008 was already installed with service pack 12.2 and 12.2.1

Failures I have seen up to now:

I can't save excel documents in xls but can in xlsx

If I save Word documents on the server they are marked as read only until I shut down everything.

Previously, a reader reported that disabling autosave/autorecover fixed the problem. If you've seen the problem and tried this approach

Wiley Publishing will ship Snow Leopard Server for Dummies by John Rizzo on November 9. Written with an eye towards supporting Macs and Windows PCs, the 432-page book includes descriptions of setting up and using the server, including:

• Set up and configure Mac OS X Server 10.6 and its services
• Administer, secure, and troubleshoot the network
• Support Mac and Windows clients for email, file sharing, server-hosted home directories, and more
• Incorporate a Mac subnet into an Active Directory domain
• Collaborate with wikis, shared contacts and calendars, Podcast Producer, and iChat Server instant messaging
• Virtualize other servers in Snow Leopard Server
• Decide which services to run on a Mac mini, Mac Pro, or Xserve

Marco Novelli in Italy reported a problem with the new Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition:

I recently updated my Entourage 2008 to WSE (Web Services Edition) and my Exchange 2007 Server to SP2. Now most of email that I write are sent as plain text. I've not been able to reproduce 100% the behavior: most of the time the issue appear when replying to email. Even If I select “HTML” from Format menu the mail is sent in plain text.

It seems to me to have done a fast rewind to begin of '90. I'm feeling the issue is located at Entourage level and not at Exchange level, because when I reply to an email I can see Entourage adding the quotation mark '>' in the reply body.

If you've seen this problem

Greg Divers responded to the report Boot Camp 3.0 and Windows 7 problems with Trackpad, illumination:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit works fine. Just the keyboard illumination I can't stop. The trackpad work fine.

If you've seen one of these problems

Scott McKay's university runs Windows XP in Boot Camp 2.1 and has some problems with time drift in Active Directory and log on problems. He writes:

On our campus, we have a problem with Mac logins on Boot Camp dual-boot Macs running Windows XP in one partition and OS X 10.5.8 (Leopard) in another and authenticating to an Active Directory server from either. On the Mac side, from time to time, users cannot log in the first time, but can generally log in after three tries...
...Read entire story here

Michael Goodine of Emuculation.com told about new versions of SheepShaver and Basilisk II, emulators for running Classic (Mac OS 9) applications on Intel Macs. He reports:

Thought you might be interested in the new build of SheepShaver that is now available. This one includes a significant number of new features and bug fixes...
...Read entire story here

Apple has acknowledged what it calls a rare bug in Snow Leopard that can delete all user data from a hard drive and reset the user account. Reports on Apple's discussion forum say that the problem occurs when a user logs in as a guest account, logs out, and then logs in again with a regular account. Users find the entire home folder reset to a virgin condition. The data loss does not occur every time this procedure is performed.

CNET quoted an Apple written statement saying "We are aware of the issue, which occurs only in extremely rare cases, and we are working on a fix."

That fix could come in the form of an update to the OS. AppleInsider reported that Apple has seeded developers with two beta builds of Mac OS X 10.6.2, the next release version of Snow Leopard.

Manuel G-Valdeca had the problem of slow performance of VMware Fusion in Snow Leopard, and fixed the problem:

I've seen on a web page to send you an email whether we find that VMware is extremely slow on a Snow Leopard. Unfortunately it happens to me as well. I did not make a fresh install; I updated the system from Leopard. Finally what I did was to reinstall the OS, and for whatever reason, it now even works better than before. I did not need to format, only reinstall.

If you've tried this

Moriah Seaman has a suggestion for a previously reported problem with speakers not working in Windows in Boot Camp 3:

I've had the same issue, and I think it is an issue with the headphone output jack. When booting up with nothing in the jack, only the external speakers in my MacBook work. However, when I boot to the partition select startup screen (holding option) if I put my speakers/headphones in the headphone jack before selecting and booting the BOOTCAMP partition, the audio works fine through the headphone jack until the device is removed from the jack, then it reverts back to internal speakers and will do nothing upon re-insertion. However, Windows XP (Boot Camp 3) on a MacBook may behave differently than your configuration. Worth a shot I suppose if you haven't tried that yet.

When Colman Prez tries to install Windows Vista with Boot Camp 3, installation fails with "Windows could not configure one or more system components:"

I own a brand new MacBook Pro 13 inch running on Snow Leopard with all the system updates updated and I just purchased Windows Vista Home Premium. So using Boot Camp 3.0 I went through the installation process. I made a 32 GB partition and inserted the DVD and it started. I formatted the partition to NTFS, then pressed install. It looked like it was working but then it got to the end were it said completing installation and a pop up came up and said “Windows could not configure one or more system components.” Press OK restart the computer, and re-install. So I pressed OK and it restarted and the same message came up. So I booted up into Mac OS X and deleted the windows partition and tried the whole thing over again. Then the same thing happened and I repeated it again and it popped up again just when it was about to finish.

If you've seen this problem

Two readers report problems with Ethernet in Windows in Boot Camp 3. One MacWindows reader also affirmed previous reports about problems with Bluetooth:

I'm also not getting Bluetooth. The IR-receiver not working for me in Boot Camp either. Plus, the Ethernet-driver somehow doesn't work.

Mike Bloomfield loses Ethernet connections with Windows Vista:

I am having a problem with the Ethernet connection using Boot Camp 3. I had to re-install the Boot Camp drivers to get connect back using Vista 32bit. Every time I reboot into the Snow Leopard 10.6.1 partition and then go back into Boot Camp, the Ethernet connection in Windows becomes lost and I cannot connect to the network. Wireless works fine, but the physical connection is lost. There seems to be a drive issue with the Ethernet card that needs to be fixed.

If you've seen these problems

Techno-Grafik has released iTaskX 2.6, an update to the project management software for Mac OS X. The new version adds compatibility with Snow Leopard and some new filters for viewing tasks. iTask 2.6 can open native Microsoft Project .mpp files. It can also exchange information with MS Project using MS Project XML and MS Project MPX formats. The information exchanged include calendars, resource information, and more than 60 other task fields.

Apple support article HT3742 provides a fix for Windows Vista clients that can't bind to a PDC hosted by Mac OS X Server. The problem occurs with the Vista client receiving a logon failure error message stating that there is a bad user name or password. The fix is to change the authentication policy on the Windows client from "NTVLM2 responses only" to "Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated." The article describes how to do this. The problem and fix apply to Mac OS X Server 10.5 and later.

StuffIt Deluxe 2010 automates moving big files over cloud-based network, improves compression of images, WAV audio

Pat Crail fixed his Snow Leopard probem printing to a Windows-connected printer:

I had the same issue others have reported: new MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard (fully updated), but could not print to a shared printer on a Windows machine via the network. I was able to find and add the printer on the Mac, and the printer model was listed in the drivers setup box, but it wouldn't print...Read entire story here

Ken Maynard has three problems with Snow Leopard in Active Directory, where the home directory is on a Windows server. He can't save files from Word 2004, and loses network connections after waking from sleep. He fixed his problem with a network scanner. Maynard's report:

We had Leopard and Office 2004 on iMac in a Windows 2003 domain. User home directory is on a Windows server. We upgraded to Snow Leopard, and now Word 2004 can't open normal.dot, and you can't save a file anywhere whether local disk or Home dir on Windows share...Read entire story here

Philomeno Cappador verified that using an all-numeric password fixes Snow Leopard problems accessing network attached storage (NAS) via SMB:

I have an iOmega NAS and recently upgraded to Snow Leopard and noticed that I could not access any of my password protected shares. I have experienced issues in the past connecting via SMB or CIFS with Leopard (10.5.x), many times my MacBook would just freeze while trying to copy files. I followed the advice to change the NAS share password to all numeric, and it worked...Read entire story here

Brian Wesselhoff has a problem with booked meetings not being displayed in Entourage Web Services Edition:

We have an issue where we use the built-in conference room scheduling in Exchange 2007. We just started migrating some users over to the Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition. When a non-domain admin opens another users' calendar (in this case a room resource), some of the booked meetings are not displayed. However...Read entire story here

Amazon has dropped the price of it's Kindle wireless reading device, to US $259, down from US $299. Amazon also announced a new model, Kindle with U.S. and International Wireless (US $279), which will ship on October 19. Kindle with U.S. and International Wireless can receive books, newspapers, and magazines while a user travels in over 100 countries, including the US, Europe, Australia, India, Japan, and China.

Kindle accesses books using the 3G wireless technology used for iPhone, Blackberry, and other smart phones, but without the monthly bills or annual contracts. Syncing with computers is not needed. The unit holds 1,500 books, and the battery lasts two weeks.

Group Logic and Symantec will market a joint enterprise solution for file system archiving for Macs. The companies plan to bundle Symantec Enterprise Vault with Group Logic's ArchiveConnect. Enterprise Vault is policy-based archiving and storage software that can move less-frequently data to lower-cost storage. It also allows for searching of archived material.

ArchiveConnect provides the Mac OS X Finder with archive management functions in a way that prevents mass recalls of archived files. Ordinarily, the Mac OS X Finder file previewing features Quick Look and Cover Flow trigger large numbers of recalls to servers, using a lot of server resources. ArchiveConnect allows online files to be previewed, but prevent previewing of archived files while browsing. Users can bring archived files back online. ArchiveConnect is a lightweight plugin for the Mac OS X Finder.

Kerio Technologies announced that it's cross-platform groupware server, Kerio MailServer, supports Windows 7 clients for email, calendaring, contacts, and tasks. Kerio also updated Kerio Outlook Connector, and extention of Micrsoft Outlook, for Windows 7. Windows 7 users canalso use Kerio WebMail, a full groupware browser-based client for the server. Kerio also recently released version 6.7.2 of the server to support of Snow Leopard's Exchange-compatible clients. Mac OS X 10.6's Mail and iCal can work as groupware clients with Kerio Mailserver 6.7.2. The server itself (which starts at $499 for ten users) is available to run on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and other operating systems.

VMware has released VMware Fusion 2.0.6, a maintenance update to the virtualization software for Mac OS X. The release is a free upgrade for owners of VMware Fusion versions 1.x and 2.x. The update fixes over 20 bugs, including problems when running on a Mac OS X 10.6.x Snow Leopard host (in 32-bit kernel mode). It also improves the performance of 3D graphics on Macs with NVIDIA graphics hardware.

VMware also said that users upgrading to this version will need to manually update VMware Tools...Read entire story here

Equinux has released VPN Tracker 6, a major new version of the Mac OS X virtual private network client for almost any VPN gateway or router, in cluding. Version 6 adds a number of new features, including support for Windows applications running in virtual machines (such as Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion). VPN Tracker 6 enables Windows programs to share the VPN tunnel with Mac applications...Read entire story here

Tony Williams offered some suggestions for Snow Leopard problems printing to Windows printers:

A couple of things to look at around solving this problem:

• Check to see that /etc/cups/printers.conf doesn't have a line
• "AuthInfoRequired username,password" - if it does remove it and retry.
• Switching from SMB to LPD can help if the print server supports it.

Make sure you have Kerberos working perfectly and are signing on to the Mac with an Active Directory account.

Two readers offered another workaround for problems connecting to SMB file sharing in Snow Leopard. Stefan Karos offered this:

In the Connect to Server dialog, type in smb://share:139 .

Where share is the name of the share on your network. I don't know why port 139 has to be specified but once you connect this way, all samba shares appear and can be navigated in the standard network window....Read entire story here

Jon Harris found that the tip about using numeric passwords worked for network attached storage. The tip originally was reported for file servers. Harris said:

I encountered this same reported problem trying to access SMB shares on my NAS (D-Link DNS-323) having upgraded to Snow Leopard. I'm only on a small home network, so no fancy domains or name servers. I tried the numeric password fix and it solved the problem - although I'm concerned that a numeric password is not as secure as a full alpha numeric one, so would be hoping for Apple to sort this out.

Dmitry Krapivin verified a previously reported problem with Snow Leopard AFP and SMB problems accessing Apple's Time Capsule:

Absolutely the same problem exists for me on my MacBook Air! I cannot use my Time Capsule disk via AFP. And via SMB it mounts, but the connection is very slow.

Apple has posted a support article called "Mac OS X v10.6: Active Directory user may not be able to log in," which offers a workaround to problems that MacWindows have been reporting. Luis Antezana told us about the article:

Here's one more good Apple KnowledgeBase entry from the other day. This helps with AD users who have an AD Home directory specified in the Directory Utility and have accounts set to create a mobile Home directory...
...Read entire story here

A change in the way Snow Leopard does DNS may be the root of some of the problems with logging in to Active Directory. A previous reader report (Snow Leopard AD binding problems linked to DNS bugs) indicated that DNS issues may be behind Active Directory problems. Today, Al Pawlowski defined what the DNS issue is and provides a workaround:

Many of the authentication and DNS problems being posted may be due to something a colleague of mine found. That is: 10.6.x will not resolve a DNS name if the DNS record for the device has too long a TTL setting...
...Read entire story here

Andrew Stuart sent another suggestion to fix the problem of email messages from Exchange Server that are garbled when viewed from an iPhone or iPod Touch. We've previously reported several suggested workarounds. Stuart has another:

I have found a fix that works, I set up my Exchange account in my phone as IMAP instead of Exchange. It works like a charm, but a little tricky to get set up initially. I think the key is changing the outgoing server port to 2525. First it will error when setting up, but if you try without SSL, it'll let you then go to advanced settings and change the server port. IT works fine for now until there's an Entourage fix.

If you've tried this approach

Robbie Thielemans responded to a report about problems connecting to Exchange Server from Snow Leopard Mail:

I have same issues here from the moment I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Whilst connecting to Exchange with Entourage, it constantly loses connection (error, cannot connect to server). Sometimes I need to retry ten times to send the same email. All the settings have remained the same as Leopard. I have no idea what causes this, and professionally this is really not workable.

If you're seeing this problem

Joe Chinn found another way to get around the problem of not being able to install the Parallels Desktop 4.0.3846 update in Snow Leopard. Previously, we reported that readers (and Parallels) recommended using the updater software to download the update, then quiting the updater software, then double-click the downloaded update. Chinn said that didn't work, but going to the Parallels web site to download the full Parallels Desktop package did...
...Read entire story here

Ziga Turk reports three problems with running Windows 7 in Boot Camp 3.0. Most notably, there's a trackpad problem that he says can be dangerous. Turk also reported problems with display and keyboard illumination:

Here's what is quite critical and does not work with on 2009 Unibody 13 inch MacBook Pro and Windows 7 Enterprise RTM (final) version (64 bit)...
...Read entire story here

A number of readers have confirmed previous reports of Snow Leopard not printing to shared printers connected to Windows PCs. The problem occurs with Windows servers and workstations, where printing works with older versions of Mac OS X. Some users see it as an authentication problem. Patrick Marquetecken sees this with Windows XP:

I have Snow Leopard but it seems impossible to print to an SMB printer connected on a Windows XP machine, I can select the printer but the print job disappears...
...Read entire story here

Carlos Martins adds to our collection of reports about Snow Leopard file sharing problems, which he has with access Windows shares and network attached storage via SMB (samba):

I started having some issues when I upgraded to 10.5.8 but usually after a reboot it worked fine again; It was kind of random. When I upgrade to 10.6, all was well but last night I lost my Windows shares. Same as some people, can ping Windows, can even VNC to it or remote desktop but no share...
...Read entire story here

Microsoft recently shipped Office 2009 Business Edition (US $400 or $240 upgrade) to replace the previous standard edition and Special Media Edition. The new bundle includes both the standard Entourage 2008 and Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition (WSE), which Microsoft released last month by itself. Entourage WSE offer greater compatibility with Exchange Server as well as faster communications, but requires Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Rollup 4 or later--it won't work with earlier versions of Exchange...
...Read entire story here

Research In Motion, maker of Blackberry smart phones, has posted a preview of Blackberry Desktop Software for Mac 1.0, including screen shots. The company said release of the syncing software is "just around the corner." The software will support syncing a Blackberry with multiple computers. The software also enables users to install and remove Blackberry applications from the Mac, as well as backup and restore Blackberry data.

Paragon Software has release NTFS for Mac OS X 7.0.3 (US $40), an update to the software that enables Mac OS X to read and write to NTFS-formatted storage devices, including removable hard drives and a Windows Boot Camp partition. The software enables NTFS volumes to mount in the Finder. The update adds compatibility with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.

The Enterprise Desktop Alliance hosting an hour-long webinar called Centralized Mac Home Directories on Windows Servers on Tuesday, October 8, 2009 at 10 am pst. The webinar describes how to set up Group Logic's ExtremeZ-IP and Centrify DirectControl to configure DFS based home directories for Mac users in an Active Directory environment.

The Enterprise Desktop Alliance is also hosting an event called Integrating Macs in the Enterprise in Palo Alto, CA, on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 from 4:30 - 6:30 pm. At the event, Enterprise Desktop Alliance member companies will describe and demonstrate their products. The companies are Atempo, Centrify, Group Logic, LANrev, Parallels, and Web Help Desk.

Two readers reported that .DS_Store files on SMB volumes play a role in the file sharing. However, while one reader said that eliminating the files fixed his problem with network attached storage (NAS), another report that hiding the files CAUSED the problem of Snow Leopard access to a Linux SMB server...
...Read entire story here

Justin Parmer added another observation about the problem with Snow Leopard's Finder not updating Windows server folders in the Finder:

I just found your site looking for a solution to the same problem posted today by Christian Volk. We are having the same issue with our Windows 2003 server since upgrading to Snow Leopard. One thing we're experiencing not mentioned by Mr. Volk is how inconsistent this behavior has been. We are seeing this most of the time, but sometimes we can delete a folder and it disappears as expected.

Chuck Sumner has a new workaround for Snow Leopard problems with SMB shares. He also said another workaround didn't work:

Changing my samba share password to an all numeric password did solve the problem for me. Editing my /etc/hosts file did not work as far as allowing me to connect to a SMB share via 10.6.1...
...Read entire story here

Flemming Jønsson is seeing the Finder lock up with SMB shares, but only in a Windows domain. He also has a workaround:

At my workplace we have a Windows file server connected to a Windows domain. In 10.5.8 I had no problems connecting to and using this share, but after upgrading to 10.6 and later 10.6.1 I can only connect to the share, not browse the share using Finder. If I try Finder will hang...
...Read entire story here

Apple tech support article TS2967 reports a problem where Macs can't authenticate to SMB shares on a Mac OS X Server. The problem occurs if the Mac OS X Server is bound to Active Directory containing Windows Server 2008 domain controllers AND when the Mac clients are not bound to Active Directory. This occurs with Mac OS X 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6 client and server. Apple offers two fixes...
...Read entire story here

Henrik Boes found some information that links Snow Leopard problems binding to Active Directory to bugs in the 10.6 opearting system. In a follow-up to his two previous reports, he said the DNS info enabled him to bind, though single sign-on still doesn't work:

I was finally able to bind my Mac to AD (Windows 2000 Server). I attribute my prior inability to do so to known DNS bugs with Snow Leopard, described in the following posts at Mac-forums.com and at Apple's Discussions forums...
...Read entire story here

Peter Baird's brand new Mac had a melt down after binding to Active Directory. After much work, he got it running, but could not create a mobile account:

On a brand new MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard out-of-the-box, I could BIND to AD (Windows Server 2003) in our usual way. But Directory Utility then locked up, "spinwheeling" so badly I couldn't force quit or get out of the Finder. I had to hard reset using the power button...
...Read entire story here

Marc Berger can't run Snow Leopard's Software Update on Macs bound to Active Directory:

Just wanted to send you another Snow Leopard issue for Active Directory users to post on your site. It appears that Software Update will run, but when it gets to the place where it installs the updates, it will hang and not run at all...
...Read entire story here

Cameron Seward's Snow Leopard Mac can bind to Active Directory, but has no write access to shares:

I am just putting together a MacBook on our AD and had no troubles with the binding. When I go and log in as domain\username it takes it and logs it in just fine. But the issue comes to be that I have no rights to write anywhere on that account. If I log into a 10.5.8 machine I am able to write to the account just fine. So I know that my policies as working correctly. I am searching for a work around on this but have yet to find one.

If you've seen this

Seth Tanner must force-unbind when he reboots Snow Leopard Server:

I have been successful in binding Snow Leopard to Active Directory. The problem comes when I reboot Snow Leopard Server it no longer talks to Active Directory, I can force unbind and rebind no problem, but it is hugely inconvenient.

If you've seen this

Several readers responded to the problem of slow Snow Leopard SMB connection to Win servers. One reader said typing the path solved the problem, another said it didn't. Don Wershba said that not connecting through the Finder resolved the issue for him:

My fix was to connect directly via the "Connect to Server" (Command-K) and not use an alias of the server. Connecting in that manner resolved all speed issues...
...Read entire story here

Hermann Vorster edited a text configuration file in Snow Leopard to fix a problem logging on to Windows SMB file servers:

I've fixed my problem. As far as I can tell, Snow Leopard is fully capable of discovering the network share, but it is having problems resolving the IP address of the server. So, if you edit /etc/hosts and add the IP address and host name of your server, Snow Leopard knows exactly where to find the server and all is solved. For example: 192.168.1.x hostname...
...Read entire story here

Christian Volk finds that Snow Leopard Macs are not updating Windows server folders in the Finder:

SMB shares out of Windows 2000 Server don't update properly as long as a Snow Leopard machine has attempted to delete a file or folder. Even viewing from the server, the file is "locked" until Snow Leopard logs out of the share, at which point everything updates correctly, such that a deleted file actually disappears. When Snow Leopard logs back in, it sees a correctly updated directory.

If you've seen this problem

Group Logic has released ExtremeZ-IP 6.0.2, an update to the AFP file and print server for Windows-based server. The update addresses a few minor issues for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard accessing the services. The company said that ExtremeZ-IP's implementation of AFP has none of the file sharing problems being reported with Snow Leopard and SMB file sharing.

The ExtremeZ-IP server includes features such as Network Spotlight full content searches and Time Machine backups, as well as filename policies and Microsoft DFS support for Mac clients.

ExtremeZ-IP 6.0.2 is free for customers with active support contracts using version 5.0 or later.

David Doerksen is seeing the problem with saving Office files from Snow Leopard to Windows servers. He updated to Snow Leopard and Office 12.2.1 at the same time, on an Activite Directory network:

Regarding Craig Chambers' report on the above issue, his experience mirrors mine exactly. Mac Mini running Snow Leopard, Office 2008 with updates through 12.2.1. Document-saving to the Windows SBS 2003 Server worked normally before I did the following...
...Read entire story here

Several readers report success for each of the two workarounds reported for problems with SonicWall's NetExtender VPN client in Snow Leopard. Vincent Philion verified the use of the AppZapper utility:

Hi! I did the "zapping" and reinstall and everything worked.

Matthew Pendlebury used the command-line fix in Terminal...
...Read entire story here

Robert Williams reported a new problem with Snow Leopard and the Cisco VPN client for Mac. (Other problems have been solved by installing/reinstalling the latest version.) Williams reports:

Just wanted to let you know about a Snow Leopard issue with the built-in Cisco VPN client. Anyone trying to connect using IPSec over UDP will not be able to do so with the Snow Leopard client. For some reason, Apple decided not to implement that feature, so those of us in that situation must continue to use the standalone Cisco VPN Client...
...Read entire story here

Jeremy Behrens sent us this tip, which can apply to running Windows on a Mac:

You mention that the VPN client will not work in Windows 7. This is true for any 64 bit windows OS including the 64 bit Vista. Fortunately there is an alternative for 64-bit Windows folks at this site.

Jeremy Behrens has looked at our Leopard VPN Reports page and Snow Leopard VPN Reports page, and still has problems with the Cisco VPN client; installing/reinstalling the latest version worked for other readers, but not for Behrens:

I cannot get Cisco VPN Version 4.9.01.0180 to work correctly under either 10.5 or 10.6. Cisco works in my VMware Fusion Windows XP install but not in OS X directly. I don't even get an error. When I click the connect button the program connect icon changes color for a second then nothing. I have tried reinstalling and restarting using the terminal command and nothing.

The VMware web site reports our previous reader report that the Fusion virtualization software is not working in 64-bit Snow Leopard:

VMware Fusion 2.0.5 is NOT compatible with the optional 64-bit kernel of Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server.

VMware Fusion 2.0.5 is compatible with Snow Leopard running in 32-bits.

The latest build of Parallels Desktop, version 4.0.3846, is compatible with Snow Leopard running in 64-bits. Sun VirtualBox is also compatible with the 64-bit kernel, as does CodeWeavers CrossOver.

(Thanks to Oliver Block and Mike Drabicky for the link.)

We continue to receive reports of Mac OS X 10.6 not connecting to network attached storage devices. The problems occur with both AFP and SMB sharing. Dennis Ostrovsky can't connect as a guest:

I have an Addonics NASU2 unit which has a 1TB HD plugged into it. In 10.5.8 I had no problems connecting to it as guest, which I have enabled. Now in 10.6.1 (and 10.6) it will not allow me to connect as Guest, claiming that the server does not allow guest access, which it does...
...Read entire story here

We've had reports of slow Snow Leopard connections to network attached storage devices, but Ron Breton is seeing this with a Windows server:

I have an iMac running 10.6 and connected to a server running Windows Home Server (WHS). Everything is hard wired, no wireless. Until 10.6, everything worked nice and fast. Now sub-folders take really long to open, sometimes upwards of 10 seconds.

This is most definitely an issue with Snow Leopard.

If you've seen this problem

Michael Oman-Reagan reports that the workaround for Snow Leopard logging on to Windows servers doesn't fix the Snow Leopard's problems with Active Directory:

We've been experiencing the same problems accessing shares on a Windows server via SMB. We can access them without a problem from 10.5.8, but 10.6 didn't work.

We found that we can manually mount the share with domain\username as the login name, where this was unnecessary in 10.5.8. But this doesn't solve the problem of auto-mounting these shares through the AD plug-in.

Howard McCollum is another reader who can't connect to a Windows printer from Snow Leopard:

I have a new Mac Pro with snow leopard and cannot connect to my Windows XP machine shared printer.

If you've seen this

Several readers wrote with workarounds to the problem of not being able to install the Boot Camp 3 drivers in Windows. (Boot Camp 3 is the version that comes with Snow Leopard.) Both suggestions involve removing older Windows drivers. Randy Syester solved his problem:

I've seen problems updating the Boot Camp drivers. My problem was apps such as LanDesk or Dameware that install drivers for remote control...
...Read entire story here

Brian Johnson can't get his external speakers to work in Boot Camp 3:

I use the Harman-Kardon Soundsticks II on my Mac Pro (2.66GHz, 10.6.1, 9GB Ram) and they work perfectly--from the Mac. On my Boot Camp partition (320GB), I'm using Vista Home Premium, updated last on 09/05/09. This is a 2nd clean install of Vista, which I finished updating as much as possible before adding any programs. My external speakers continue not to work in Vista...
...Read entire story here

Edward Yost can't get Bluetooth to work in Boot Camp 3:

I can't use blue tooth devices with Boot Camp Windows XP SP3. also cant play the game medieval total war gold edition -- probably the drivers for an nvidia geforce 9400. It's a 2 GHz GHz Mac mini, 4 MB RAM.

If you've seen this

About two weeks ago, Parallels released Parallels Desktop 4.0.3846, and update to the virtualization environment for Mac OS X. The update improves running in a Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard host OS in both 32-bit and 64-bit modes. The update also adds official support for running Mac OS X Server and Windows 7 in virtual machines. There are also various bug fixes in the update...
...Read entire story here

Two readers reported problems installing the Parallels Desktop 4.0.3846 update in Snow Leopard. The update fixes some bugs when running on Snow Hosts, among other issues. George Palfi describes the symptoms:

First, I should say that I have used the latest versions of Parallels, Fusion, and Virtual Box on my new install of Snow Leopard and they all seem to work fine. However, an update arrived yesterday for Parallels 4 that I downloaded and tried to install. The installer gets to the stage...
...Read entire story here

Andy Jackson reports running Sun's VirtualBox virtualization software in Snow Leopard 64-bit mode. He even ran a 64-bit guest OS:

I downloaded and installed Sun's VitrualBox while in 64 bit mode! It works. I then downloaded and installed Ubuntu 9.04 64-bit inside of VirtualBox. It works too. It is updating as I type this. I checked VitrualBox under system profiler and it was listed as a 64-bit app. So far I have not encountered a problem while I have been booted into 64-bit mode.

If you've used VirtualBox in Snow Leopard (See also VirtualBox Tips and Reports.)

Andy Jackson reports that the lastest version of VMware Fusion doesn't run in Snow Leopard's 64-bit mode:

I booted my unibody MacBook Pro into 64 bit mode. VMware 2.0.5 won't load, it says it is 32 bit only. Over all I am impressed with 64 bit. VMware was the only app that that I have found that worked in 32 but not 64. The apps that needed Rosetta in 32 bit work just as well in 64 bit with Rosetta. My printers (both networked) still worked. VMware 2.0.5 still works if I boot into standard mode. But won't start when I boot in 64 bit mode.

If you've seen this issue (See also VMware Fusion Tips and Reports.)

Tasso Papaelias reports that "VMware Fusion runs incredibly slow on Snow Leopard. This is with the latest update."

If you've seen this issue

Craig Chambers is having problems saving Office 2008 files to a Windows server:

I've encountered a problem saving Office 2008 documents to a Windows server (SBS2003 SP2, not RC2 in my case) in 10.6. It looks like I am not the only one having this problem. Please see this post I started at Microsoft. After upgrading to 10.6 everything seemed to be fine with my Office installation until I tried to save a document that I had opened from a network share...
...Read entire story here

Apple released the Mac OS X 10.6.1 update, and Snow Leopard Server 10.6.1 update. The 10.6.1 client fixes some problems with Mail, including problems sending mail to certain SMTP servers. However, the bug fix list does not include problems with SMB file sharing, Active Directory problems, and virtual private networking issues, which readers have been reporting.

The 10.6.1 Server update fixes a problem "that could cause Server Admin or Server Assistant to report a duplicate serial number" on servers with multiple Ethernet ports. It also "improves reliablity with services that use Grand Centrqal Dispatch" and adds some security patches.

If you've tried Snow Leopard 10.6.1 client or server update

Two readers independently offered the same fix for problems logging on to SMB file sharing with the first release of Snow Leopard. The fix is to use a path in a specific form of a path in the log-in window:

Andrew Cunningham uses it to connect to a Windows domain: