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More solutions for Panther Binding to Active Directory. March 30, 2004 -- Another pair of readers suggested fixes for the Mac OS X 10.3.3 problem with Active Directory binding:

Mark Fojas is a network administrator:

David is apparently mistaking his local admin privileges on his laptop

for domain admin privileges. He will not be able to properly bind to to AD unless he is in the domain admin groups-- and this is controlled by the AD administrators. I have been able to bind and unbind at will-- because I am a Domain Administrator. He should request that one of his company's AD administrators to bind his computer. If he has an AD account, he should be using that account instead of his local laptop account. Note that he should type in his username as

"<domain>/<username>.

*<domain>=his organization's domain/<username>=his AD account.

My experiences with AD and OS X integration have been great, of course, I have a lot more privileges than most people on the domain. Get to know your administrator. Let him play with your toys.

Peter Jensen has a solution as well:

I got the same authentication error when binding OS X 10.3.3 to AD on Windows 2000 Server, but found that entering the AD server as the only DNS server in the System Preferences Network configuration solved the problem.

Entourage X problems with Exchange Server. March 30, 2004 -- A pair of readers reported more problems with Entourage X and Exchange server:

April Acker reports four problems with implementing Entourage X with Exchange server on a large network:

I saw your Entourage for Exchange Special Report on MacWindows.com and it struck a chord. I have been planning and implementing an OS X migration at a large corporation. The IT department wanted to integrate Active Directory and use Panther.

Anyway, everything has worked seamlessly except Entourage X which has presented a huge number of issues for users.

1. A problem with authentication causes AD accounts to lock out. There is no rhyme or reason to this.

2. Users occasionally cannot send mail, and receive an SMTP error which then also causes their AD account to lock out 50% of the time.

3. Some users can see public folders. Others cannot. Again, no rhyme or reason to this.

4. Some users cannot see updates to reoccurring calendar events, or when the update of the calendar event is sent, only the first instance of the reoccurring appointment is sent (i.e. if the event was first scheduled in 2001, this is the appointment that the user sees as an update!)

Ben Robertson has problems with calendars:

I actually decided to test this on my install of Entourage because I was having some trouble (more like oddities) w/ Outlook 2001, on Exchange 2000 with new G5 dual 2's (10.3.3)

I actually could see any calendar event that I create, and it shows up in my calendar, but there's no "accept", and the older calendar events that are already seen in Outlook, and which recur monthly, aren't seen in Entourage. Also, there's no way to specify which calendar event belongs to which email address (if you've got multiple accounts)

Also, the Address book doesn't seem to work. I don't get any of the global address' listed (but, they are seen because you can start to type a users' name, and it gets filled in)

If you've seen these problems, please let us know.

Reader problem with SMB in Panther 10.3.3. March 30, 2004 -- Dave Garaffa reports two problems with Mac OS X 10.3.3 accessing SMB file servers:

I've started to see a problem and while it might be simply related to MS Office and SMB it could also be Apple's SMB itself.

What's required:

Two Mac's running 10.3.3 (that have login access to the same SMB share -- see below).

One Windows 2000 box with SMB sharing turned on.

Steps to reproduce:

1. On both Macs mount the SMB share located on the Win2K machine.
2. On one Mac open (and leave open) an Excel file located on the Win2K share (mounted via SMB).
3. On the other Mac try to copy that open file from the SMB share to your local HD and then open it locally - the file will be corrupt (and/or empty) yet the Finder will not report a single error.

Also broken is the following:

Two Mac's running 10.3.3 (that have login access to the same SMB share -- see below). One Windows 2000 with SMB sharing turned on.

Steps to reproduce:

1. On both Macs mount the SMB share located on the Win2K machine.

2. Open an Excel file on one of the Macs running 10.3.3

3a. TRY and open the Excel file on the other Mac running 10.3.3 (it can't do it - it should open as [read only] but it doesn't).

3b. TRY and open the Excel file on the Win2K box (that's hosting the share) - can't do that either again, it SHOULD open as [read only] but it doesn't.

4. Once the file has had ATTEMPTED access from the Mac - the Mac that does have the file open MAY (doesn't always happen) have trouble saving the file - This doesn't always happen though.

As an interesting aside. if the Win2K machine opens the file FIRST than the Mac running 10.3.3 DOES get to open the file and indeed its in [read only] mode...

This all starting happening with 10.3.3 (as best I can tell)

While I've tested this on a number of different machines here where I work, I'm not YET ruling out something in our specific environment.

If you've seen these problems, please let us know.

Transverter Pro 4.0 released by TechPool Software. March 30, 2004 -- Techpool Software has released Transverter Pro 4.0 for Windows 2000/XP and Mac OS X, a new version of the batch file conversion utility that converts and rasterizes PDF, EPS and PostScript files into TIFF, JPEG, GIF, EPS, Illustrator and other file formats. One new feature are Hot Folders, which can act as input and output folders for any format or option. T-Pro 4.0 will run in the background and process PDF, EPS or PostScript files that are dropped into those folders and converted to their designated format option. The new version also adds a PostScript Level 3 Interpreter, 10,000 dpi file output, updated PDF file handling, updated JPEG support and more.

4D, Inc. ships 4th Dimension 2003.3. March 30, 2004 -- Today, 4D, Inc., released 4D version 2003.3 (free update), a new version of the cross-platform database environment. (See also this press release.) The new version fixes bugs and has new "networking protocol enhancements."

SQLiteManager 1.0b6 for Mac OS and Windows. March 30, 2004 -- SQLabs has released SQLiteManager 1.0b6 (US $39) for Mac OS and Windows, a new betat version of the database manager for SQLite databases. SQLiteManager can create and browse tables, indexes, and views; insert, remove, and edit table records; and execute arbitrary SQL statements. This beta version fixes bugs in the REALbasic database converter, as well as adding other improvements.

The role of the ".local" domain with the AD plugin, and a fix. March 25, 2004 -- Readers on Wednesday who questioned the role of Panther's ".local" domain role in 10.3.3's Active Directory problems may have been onto something. A recently updated Apple Knowledge Base article entitled How to Look Up ".local" Hostnames via Both Rendezvous and Standard DNS provides a Unix shell script that will enable standard DNS to look up Rendezvous .local names. The script, from Article 107800:

$ sudo su
$ cd /usr/sbin
$ cat > EnableUnicastDotLocal
#!/bin/tcsh
echo domain local > /etc/resolver/local.1
grep -v domain /etc/resolv.conf >> /etc/resolver/local.1
echo search_order 2 >> /etc/resolver/local.1
[Control-D]
$ chmod +x EnableUnicastDotLocal
$ exit

These steps create an executable shell script named "EnableUnicastDotLocal" that will create and populate the necessary configuration files to enable dual lookups of .local hostnames.

To run the script, execute this command:

$ sudo /usr/sbin/EnableUnicastDotLocal

Mark Edwards, who reported on Tuesday that he was unable to bind to .local, say's Apple's script works:

Well I've finally got 10.3.3 after applying this fix I found on the Apple site which shows How to Look Up ".local" Hostnames via Both Rendezvous and Standard DNS.

Meanwhile, David Toub, one of the first people to report the Mac OS X 10.3.3 problem with Active Directory binding, sent an update. He has tried the AD binding suggestions on our Active Directory Reports page, without success:

I read with interest the numerous comments regarding this issue in the March 23 MacWindows. I also saw a comment on MacFixit regarding the need for a shared folder on the target drive in order for it to be recognized under 10.3.3. I went through and attempted most of the potential solutions, including making sure there is a shared folder on the network drive in question (there is), deleting my AD account and recreating it, trying to log in as Guest, etc. Unfortunately, nothing worked--I still get through 4 of the 5 steps in binding, but in the end get the same error message about not having privileges to do this.

This, along with the inability to use ifconfig or the Network preference pane to change my network interface settings to full-duplex (broken as of 10.2.8--all this does is terminate my network access forcing me to reboot) has really loused up my ability to use my iBook at work on a Windows 2003 network.

I've heard this from others in similar situations, and feel like things were better in 10.2.6 than the current system as regards network access. I'd like to think that Apple is aware of this (I had informed Apple tech support about this some time ago) and working on a fix, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later, as it is getting harder to be the only Mac on a network these days.

Reader problem with 10.3.3 printing to Windows printers. March 25, 2004 -- Mark Edwards is having a problem with printing to Windows network printers:

Now I have a new problem with Panther 10.3.3. I used Print Setup Utility to attempt printing to Windows network printers. The only way my PowerBook could see them was through Open Directory. I added printers, both from the print server and a shared printer from a Windows 2000 workstation, but whenever I tried to print I got the error message:

NT_STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED.

I was logged into the network as an administrator

If you 've seen this problem or have a suggestion, please let us know.

Files visible from Mac in Windows clients view SMB connections. March 25, 2004 --Martyn Phillips suggests an answer as to why Mac OS X clients see fewer files on a Windows file server than do Windows clients:

I've recently been setting up a samba server at work to replace our aging NT server. I have noticed that the list of shares on the samba server on the Mac is different to the list I see under Windows, but as far as I can tell, the Mac only shows the shares I have access rights to based on the username/password I connected to the server with and Windows shows all the shares that are browseable.

FileMaker Pro 7 increases import, export features. March 25, 2004 -- File Maker Inc. has released FileMaker Pro 7 (US $299, upgrade $149), a major new version of the cross-platform database product line for Windows and Mac OS X. FileMaker Developer 7 is shipping now; FileMaker Server 7, FileMaker Server 7 Advanced, and FileMaker Mobile 7 will ship in early summer. (See also this press release.)

The company says that FileMaker Pro 7 can import, store and export ANY file or document, including "PDFs, Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files, digital images, video, music and more," using a new Container field.

FileMaker Pro 7 also now has "redesigned...streamlined relational architecture, which enables users to simplify information management by storing multiple tables within a single file." The maximum file size has also been increased to 8 terabytes.

VPN Tracker supports Novell BorderManager. March 25, 2004 -- Novell and Equinux announced that users of VPN Tracker (US $90 and up), IPsec virtual private networking client for Mac OS X, can now create virtual private network connections to Novell BorderManager 3.8 (US $40 per user), the most recent version of Novell's firewall/VPN server solution.

SnapTalk chat/file transfer software goes cross-platform. March 25, 2004 -- Glass Bead Software released of a Windows 98/2000/XP version of SnapTalk (US $14 per user), its peer-to-peer instant messaging software that has previously been available for Mac OS 8.6-9 and OS X. SnapTalk's file transfer capabilities now work between Mac and Windows users as well. SnapTalk includes archiving and searching of transcripts, as well as spell checking.

SMB in 10.3.3 compared to 10.2.8. March 23, 2004 -- Mike Wilson sent us some comparisons of accessing SMB from Mac OS X 10.3.3 and from 10.2.8, including some oddities:

I can do Connect To Server and connect to a Windows 2000 Server on our campus network using smb://[IP Address], log in successfully, and see a pop-up list of share points. Some observations:

1. Under 10.2.8 the share points list is in random order (order of creation?), while under 10.3.3 the list is alphabetical. Thank you, Apple!

2. Comparing the 10.3.3 share points list to the view of same using my Win XP PC, there are clearly differences in the alphabetization rules used by OS X and XP, but that's not a problem.

3. 10.3.3 shows fewer share points than Windows. The Win XP view shows 202 share point volumes, plus one "Printers and Faxes" item. The 10.3.3 view shows 192 share point volumes, and does not show the "Printers & Faxes" item.

I've been unable to figure out what distinguishes the 10 "missing" volumes from the ones that do show up in the 10.3.3 list. (Some volumes have single-word names, while others have 2 or more words separated by spaces, and others have hyphenated names -- but that's true of other volumes that are and are not displayed.)

4. If I use the smb://[IP Address] login described in Note 1, above, and this time append "/[volumename]" to the IP Address, I can log directly into that specific share point, even though that volume name doesn't appear on the Panther pop-up list described in Note 3, above.

(Even more confusing: using the same method the owner of that volume cannot gain access from her own Mac. It wasn't a typo. She is running 10.2.8, but I have successfully logged into the shared volume from another 10.2.8 Mac.)

If you'd like to add to these observations, please let us know.

Suggestions for 10.3.3 Active Directory binding problem. March 23, 2004 -- Many readers are confirming last week's report problems with binding to Active Directory since the OS X 10.3.3 update. A few readers sent us suggestions. For instance Joseph Swenson had this to say:

We saw the permissions error as well, however we then specified a Domain Controller, and we could bind the machine without error. After binding we unchecked the preferred domain controller option, and everything has worked fine.

We've also noticed kerberos authentication is working for SMB connections.

Blair Hicks succeeded when he enabled "guest" in the domain:

Using 10.3.3 with Active Directory now can browse correctly, but only after I enabled the Guest account on the domain controller.

Before "Guest" was enabled I would see a security event log basically saying that the 10.3.3 computer was trying to use the guest account. This is after a successful login using a AD account.  

The 10.3.3 computer should be using the logged in user information to make and connections to AD.

10.3.3 also fixes the "Kerberos Ticket" security events that would show up before.

Through some trial and error, Craig Nicko managed to get a binding:

I've recently upgraded to 10.3.3. For a computer bound prior to the update to 10.3.3, no problems. I then make a disk image and move the entire installation to another machine, unbind AD and rebind with a new computer name. My first attempts failed to bind with the new name citing that the account is not authorized for such actions. Of course I'm using an AD domain admin account to bind. Tried three or four times to no avail.

Then on a whim, I shortened the computer name and tried again--same domain, same admin account credentials, and it worked. I'm testing more to see if this is just coincidental erratic behavior or if the computer name length does have any impact. Until I do further testing I won't know for sure. But, for the record, this format worked:

AAAA-AAaaaaaaa-aAaa

But this didn't:

AAA-Aaaaaaaaa-AAaAaa

On March 16, we noted that the 10.3.3 upgrade made some changes to the Active Directory plugin. We said:

The Active Directory plug-in is no longer sensitive to the case of the domain; the plug-in now works in ".local" domain environments; the plug-in is now less sensitive to DNS records that don't have matching reverse lookup.

Will Jorgensen suspects that the ".local" may have something to do with the new problem:

I have experienced the same problem with the Active Directory plugin as previously mentioned. On machines that were upgraded the plugin ceases to work. If I remove the search path for authentication and contacts and then re-added the plugin into the paths it continues to work.

However, binding is a problem. If I unbind a computer that was working and then try to bind again I get an error message that says I have an invalid forest domain combination and asks me to enter a fully qualified domain name, presumably new computers would have the same problem. I have confirmed with our Active Directory admins that what I am putting in is correct. (The same information that I was using in 10.3.2 that worked) I'm not sure what apple changed here. I think it has something to do with the additional compatibility that 10.3.3 is supposed to provide with .local domain environments since our forest uses a .local address.

In response to another users comments about getting all the way through the bind process and then getting an error. I believe the problem is that your network account doesn't have permissions to create the container in AD or the container exists already (maybe created by ADmitMac) and you don't have permissions to join a new computer to that name. I have seen a similar problem and deleting the computer account in AD fixed it for me. I have had to add the computer accounts for other users that were trying the plugin but didn't have permissions in AD to create computer accounts.

Mark Edwards is also wondering about the .local domain:

I was really thrilled when I read that Panther 10.3.3 had resolved the problem of binding to .local domains so I updated and tried again and got exactly the same error as before - that it couldn't bind and that I should use a FQDN. Has anyone else managed to bind to a .local domain with 10.3.3?

Previously, I have been using both Panther (10.3.2) and Jaguar with ADmitMac to try and integrate with AD (Win 2000 server)

Both worked fine with a test.com domain, but failed to bind to test.local. I tried all 'fixes' I could find - disabling mDNSResponder, hacking resolver/local to point to our DNS and installing dotlocallocator. All these failed.

I wrote to Thursby who said they 'had no timeframe' for fixing the .local problem.

Bill Steigerwald

We have the same issue. We also found that the computer cannot already exist in the AD. When using a new computer name it creates it in the OU and never finishes the bind process.

Sébastien Dreyfuss

I have just upgraded a PB to 10.3.3 and the same problem David Toub described: the machine won't bind because I don't have sufficient privileges. At first, I thought it was my local account, so I logged in as root, to no avail. Secondly, I asked the Domain Admins to use their own login and password, still to avail.

Under 10.3.2, I was able to bind, but not authenticate a user in the domain. As I read that 10.3.3 brought a new version of the AD plug-in, I tried a newly upgraded machine, but I can't even pass the binding process.

We are running AD on a Windows 2000 Server.

Frank Houle sees the "Insufficient privileges" message:

I can no longer bind any Mac to AD. I always get "Insufficient privileges" even though I'm an AD admin as well as the main admin on the computer. Have not been able to find what the issue was. Maybe a combination of the Mac 10.3.3 update and a windows server update conflicting?

This more or less worked as I was able to bind to AD once I had created the Computer item in the right OU. I was only once able to bind in a proper manner (ie any user could login through my test machine), but I had to play with it and broke it. Ever since then I have been able to bind, but no other user could log on to the machine. It would not be able to find their ID info. As of now, I'm still trying to figure out what made it so that now it does not work. I've reinstalled the OS from nothing even.

Right now, I'm stumped. A lookupd -d will show a list of seemingly random users once I bidn, but no user that I can recognize even though I'm bound to that specific OU and I can see the Computer item listed in the AD Users and Computers on my XP machine. It never does put its DNS name or anything.

I even tried following the instructions on how to Bind properly to AD from different sites still not to avail.

Today, a new problem popped up. Now it will not let me bind the Mac to AD. It states that I don't have sufficient privileges, even though I'm very well listed as an Admin and can login to AD on windows machines.

I'm also wondering if it may be a kerberos issue where the kerberos ticket is not being created or send to the AD server.

Trevor Teuscher cannot find a solution:

Where I work, we have also had problems with the 10.3.3 update and active directory. Before the update, we could bind to Active Directory just fine. After the update, we are no longer able to bind. Further, we are unable to authenticate to the Active Directory server from machines that we were able to authenticate to prior to installing the update. Our Active Directory administrators found a way for us to bind from computers that have been updated by using a different address for the forest. However, the only way this has been successful, has been to unbind the computer BEFORE running the update and binding again AFTER the update has been installed. The computers the were not unbound before running the update are stuck. We can no longer unbind them, let alone rebind the using the new forest address. So far, we can't find a workaround.

Andrew Lee:

My problem may be similar to Jay Christianson's, who said

[Our] machines that were already bound, and then were upgraded are still working correctly. It's just machines that we hadn't bound prior to going to 10.3.3 that we can't make bind.

I have configured 12 Macs to authenticate from our Active Directory server using the directory access plug-in. Two have been upgraded to 10.3.3 now and both seem to have broken. It did not happen straight away, so I am not convinced that it is the update that broke them. At the same time I was updating them, one of our other administrators was trying to trouble shoot a windows login issue that is plaguing many of our Citrix clients. He ran several active directory repair processes which may have contributed to our current situation.

The situation:

The two machines that have been updated stopped authenticating against the server - not straight away, but 2 or 3 days later. On one machine I attempted to unbind from the server and then rebind. Unfortunately I am not able to unbind the machine. It is kind of in limbo at present. OS X thinks it is part of the AD and I am trying to find out how to reset this.

As a result I am not game to upgrade the other 10 machines in case it is the 10.3.3 update that is breaking things.

Bruce Nunn describes problems with XServ server:

I'm experiencing a similar problem that David Toub has written up, only worse. Our PC geniuses recently added a Server 2003 to the network as a backup domain controller to a Windows 2000 PDC, with the honorable intention of replacing the old Win2K server as primary domain controller. And that included adding a new Active Directory scheme and add-on to the old PDC.

Suddenly, my XServ (with 10.3.2 at that point) would go into a spin and reboot every time I tried to start Server Admin. Also, connecting to shares in active directory-connected servers from the XServ would eventually cause a spin /crash/reboot also. Since I'm yet Unix literate I couldn't figure out how to turn off some of the server services on the XServ that were probably crashing into Active Directory bugs. Sooooo, I reloaded the XServ, did all updates to 10.3.3, BUT only left one admin logon with an Open Directory password -- all others are set for Shadow Password - and I absolutely do not use that OD logon now, as it'll crash and burn the system if there's interaction with Active Directory in the MS Domain realm; I also disconnected the XServ from the company DNS service, and went straight out to one of our service provider DNS addresses for Xserv software updates etc. Now the XServ works great, faster than before apparently for Mac clients, and the Mac clients can still connect to the PC servers for Entourage email & calendaring (using POP not IMAP protocol -- which the MS servers sort-of/kind-of use but with an MS twist to the IMAP standard, of course) and also connect to Mac-shares on those servers; I've turned off the SMB on most of the Mac clients, as it slows their networking down a bit (they were networking as slow as local PCs which connect to the Active Directory domain) and I figured out I just didn't need the feature usually anyway.

I'm not totally sure at this point if MS did a number on Apple here, or if our PC admins just did a shoddy job. It really looks like both. I can't fault Apple here as the MS changes in Active Directory goofed things up immediately upon installation, AND I can easily connect from Mac clients to a dozen or so PCs under my control (when I want to); these dirty dozen PC are not allowed to authenticate to the often-virused MS Win2K/2003 domain as a domain member as I don't have time to remove the latest & greatest viruses every other week (still happens but not as often as before).

I noticed that networking had changed by both the XServ crashing AND some power-users on Macs finding networking glitches and getting random spinning-wheel-from-hell delays. In addition, my assistant started running into weird problems in doing large copies (2 GB)of Mac programs & font sets from a PC Server share to new OS X 10.3.2 G5s, as the copying would stop with a message about some random file already existing could not be overwritten because it was in use. The PC admins claimed they didn't do anything, nothing changed, it had to be a Mac problem, but they finally confessed when the PC backups kept failing -- with critical backups of PC servers -- with authentication problems that, yeah, now that they thought about it, they did change a couple little things. I nominated them for starring roles in local Passion plays, but HR wouldn't allow it.

I really loved the SMB connection options a few months back, but I've since realized it's smarter, safer, and faster to turn off SMB whenever possible, and to keep all critical PCs disconnected from the MS domain as much as possible as well. SMB is mostly a great new toy at first, but really belongs in the old toy box. My advice is keep things as separate as possible, don't use IMAP protocol, use MS Remote Desktop to manage PC Servers from a Mac, and keep your spikes sharp.

(For those interested in procedures for Active Directory binding in Panther, see our Active Directory reports page.)

Mac OS X 10.3.3 may be "Panther 1.0" for cross-platform issues. March 18, 2004 -- Reaction from MacWindows readers to this week's Mac OS X 10.3.3 update is mostly positive. This release seems to deliver much of Apple's promises for cross-platform compatibility, while fixing some of the problems that plagued the previous 10.3 releases. However, two readers report new problems with Active Directory integration. First the good news.

Richard Jenkins addresses the question of whether 10.3.3 still permits double logon through both the Network icon and Connect to Server dialog:

Running 10.3.3 on client and server. If I use cmd-K to connect to my server then go to the network icon in the sidebar and browse for my server, I get the connect button. If I click connect I don't need to re-authenticate, but am presented with a list of my share points.

Behavior is consistent going the other way as well, so it's all a much nicer and consistent all round. The server only shows me as being connected once.

Paul Levitt says that 10.3.3 fixes Entourage & SMB bugs

OS X 10.3.3 seems to have addressed two issues that have been a daily annoyance for the entire time I've been using OS X.

1 - I am now able to create an appointment on Entourage and have it successfully synch to Exchange/Outlook. Until now I could only enter events on my Palm or on the Windoze box. Appointments originated in Entourage would throw an error when synch was attempted.

2 - I can now copy entire folders and multiple files to our NetApp RAID mounted under SMB. Previously I could only copy a single file to the RAID. Attempts to copy a directory resulted in an error message and a single, empty folder on the RAID.

Much better - and it's about time !

However, upon more investigation, Levitt became convinced that Entourage was not fixed by 10.3.3, but by a solution he stumbled on. (More on this below.)

Jeff Hobbs found that the upgrade helped with Outlook 2001:

Microsoft Outlook 2001 seems to work when installed upon the MacOS X 10.3.3 boot drive, in "/Applications", for instance -- whereas before I had to use some odd workarounds to make it work, the "best" of which was making a disc image with the Outlook 2001 application on it and running the app from there.

Dave Scott

Just login at work ( Tibook on large window network, running active directory) and found that I can now browse and connect to any server on our domain - via Network icon on Finder.

I haven't been able to do this since before 10.2.8 (and before the company LAN went to Active Directory).

Up until yesterday I could only see local subnet via Network icon - but not actually make any connections. Today I can - and I haven't had to set up active directory plugin at all. Major improvement.

Previously I could connect if I knew IP address of server, and used

smb://ipaddress via "connect to" dialog box

So now one happy person.

Gavin Garnham is not so happy with SMB browsing:

Have Apple really improved the way OS X browses Windows SMB shares? I don't think so. It looks to me as if they gave up on fixing the problem.

Before, you could either use Connect to Server, enter the remote computers address and a list of its available shares would pop up and you would choose one, this share would mount and show up in the finder sidebar or your desktop, depending on your preference settings. Or, you could use the Network browser to see the available computers, connect to one and all of that computers shares would show up for browsing in the finder.

With 10.3.3, when you use the Network browser and you select a computer to connect to, it pops up with the same dialogue you get when using Connect to Server. You can only choose one share at a time and its mounted to your sidebar/desktop. This, in my opinion, defeats the object of having the Network browser. The only benefit of the Network browser now, is that you get to see a list of available computers to connect to without knowing their IP address.

What has happened to the browse functionality? Have they given up on it?

Active Directory problems

Jay Christianson can't bind to Active Directory with the 10.3.3 update:

Not sure anyone else has brought this up, but on machines that we have upgraded to 10.3.3, we can not bind them through Directory access to Active Directory.

I believe machines that were already bound, and then were upgraded are still working correctly. It's just machines that we hadn't bound prior to going to 10.3.3 that we can't make bind.

David Toub also reports an Active Directory binding problem:

John, there is definitely a change with 10.3.3, but I'm not able to say, unfortunately, that I've successfully gotten network access with this update. Prior to a recent Windows network update, I was able to log on to our network under 10.2-10.3. However, since the update, I have not been granted authentication by the network under Active Directory. I was able to do this using ADmitMac from Thursby, but that trial expired. With 10.3-10.3.2, the Active Directory tab of Directory Access would not recognize our domain. Under 10.3.3, I get much further into the process-I do get through most of the binding process, but in the end I receive an error message that I don't have administrative privileges, which I assume is on the network since I'm the system administrator on my own iBook. Strange that this was not at all an issue with ADmitMac. I think 10.3.3 is a step in the right direction, but for our network at least, it's not there yet with regard to AD.

If you 've seen this problem with Mac OS X 10.3.3, please let us know.

Entourage bug and workaround. March 18, 2004 -- At first, Paul Levitt though that the Mac OS X 10.3.3 updated solved a problem with Entourage. He now believes that he has stumbled upon a bug and a workaround:

Ever since installing the Entourage for Exchange update, I've been unable to synch events originated in Entourage with Exchange/Outlook. I've exchanged many emails with a Microsoft MBU SW engineer, but everyone was stumped.

This is just too bizarre but, by accident, I think I found the bug.

I updated to 10.3.3 last night and, since it included many networking changes, I thought I'd try adding an event in Entourage to see if there was any improvement.

To my surprise, the new Entourage event immediately showed up in my Outlook calendar. I, of course, attributed this to 10.3.3 - but I was wrong.

Thinking the problem solved, I added another event in Entourage, only to find that it did not synch, and threw the same error I've been seeing all along. After comparing this event with the successful one, I noticed that the successful event included text in the description field at the bottom of the "New Event" window.

After some experimentation, I can now confirm that events generated in Entourage WiLL NOT synch to Exchange/Outlook unless text is entered in this field. No other changes had any effect. I have no idea whether 10.3.3 is a factor or not (it did solve some SMB issues).

Seems like a bug to me.

If you 've seen this problem, please let us know.

Mac OS X 10.3.3 addresses file sharing issues. March 16, 2004 -- Yesterday, Apple released Mac OS X 10.3.3, a hefty (59 MB) update that addresses some of Panther's major problems with cross-platform networking. Available as a separate download as well as through Software Update, the update includes dozens of enhancements, many of them in the networking area. The cross-platform improvements include the following:

Elimination of the File Sharing Dichotomy

Network volumes logged on through the Finder sidebar's Network icon are now available in the Finder sidebar and desktop. With previous versions of Panther, only volumes logged on using the Connect to Server dialog would appear in the sidebar and in the desktop. Servers logged on to from the Network icon can now be disconnected by dragging desktop icons to the Trash or or by clicking the Eject icon in the Sidebar -- behavior before only afforded to servers logged on via Connect to Server.

(We don't yet know if 10.3.3 still permits double logon through both the Network icon and Connect to Server dialog.)

Apple notes that AFP (Apple File Protocol) Authentication options are now available to the user.

"Improved" Cross-Platform File Sharing

Apple says that the upgrade improves file sharing and directory services for Windows networks using SMB/CIFS, Unix NFS networks, and Mac AFP networks. We don't know if that means that some of the bugs reported on our Panther special report page have been fixed, however.

Improved Active Directory and Directory Services Access

Enhances an Open directory plug-in, which is used in network environments: The Active Directory plug-in is no longer sensitive to the case of the domain; the plug-in now works in ".local" domain environments; the plug-in is now less sensitive to DNS records that don't have matching reverse lookup.

AppleTalk Browsing is now on by default

Previous Panther versions had AppleTalk browsing turn off by default, even when AppleTalk was turned on. You need to turn in on in the Directory Access utility.

Duplex Issue

Apple says the update "addresses issues, such as a lost network connection, that could occur when connecting to a network device that forces the network speed and/or duplex setting (known as a 'locked' device)."

Please let us know if you've found that the 10.3.3 update does or doesn't fix any of the issues we've reported on on our Panther special report page.

Apple also releases Mac OS X 10.3.3 Server. March 16, 2004 -- Mac OS X 10.3.3 Server is also available, and also contains a host of networking fixes and improvements. In addition to the improvements in the OS X 10.3.3 client, the server update includes:

• Improved Directory Services reliability in Active Directory Domains with large number of hosts/clients.
• The Active Directory plug-in is no longer sensitive to the case of the domain; the plug-in now works in ".local" domain environments; the plug-in can now work with DNS records that don't have matching reverse lookup; and the plug-in can work in environments that are not hierarchical.
• Bug fixes in VPN services
• Fixes a name conflict problem with SLP, AppleTalk, and SMB
• Samba is updated to 3.0.2
• Fixes AFP modification date bug where files received a new modification date when opened but not modified.
• Fixes a problem where a kernel panic would occur when a file erroneously appeared to be locked or in use.
• Improvements to QuickTime Streaming Server, Mail services, and Web services

Apple also provided this warning about the OS X update with MySQL databases:

Data stored in MySQL databases with the version of MySQL that is pre-installed Mac OS X Server 10.3.2 or earlier must be exported and re-imported in order to be compatible with version of MySQL that is pre-installed on Mac OS X Server 10.3.3, in which a byte-ordering issue is fixed.

Panther creation/mod date errors when networking Mac and PC's. March 16, 2004 -- Brian Brunsting verified a previously reported problem of file date errors with Panther file sharing:

I have just discovered this problem as well, though it is through a slightly different situation. We have a Windows server (Win server 2003 standard edition) hooked up as a print server for a copier in-house. This is also running software that will create a PDF on the fly of our print jobs. I just noticed that the PDF files it creates that still reside on the windows server don't show a creation date at all, but do list a modified date, which is when that PDF was created. When I copy those PDF's to our Mac server, which, sadly, is still only running OS 9, it shows me a creation date of December 31, 1969 for every file. Weird.

Does Mac OS X 10.3.3 fix this problem? Please let us know.

VPN Tracker 2.2.6 adds support for more VPN servers. March 16, 2004 -- Equinux has released VPN Tracker 2.2.6 (free update for 2.x users), a new version of the IPsec virtual private network client for Mac OS X. The new version includes the following enhancements:

• Support for Novell Border Manager, Netgear FVM318 and Pyramid BenHur II
• Support for full keyboard access
• Button for easy exporting of connections
• Various fixes

Equinux' interoperability page describes how to connect to various VPN systems using VPN Tracker.

Equinux also released VPN Tracker Server 1.0.3, which includes support for full keyboard access and an improved log output.

SnapMail now has Windows and Mac versions. March 16, 2004 -- Glass Bead Software announces the release of a Windows version of SnapMail ($25 per user), an office peer-to-peer messaging system. Users can now transfer files between Macs and PCs, as well as send messages and alerts.

Active Directory integration webcast today. March 16, 2004 -- This afternoon, MacOSXLabs.org group is presenting a Mac OS X 10.3 Active Directory Integration Webcast on at 1:00 pm EST. The session will be moderated by Fred Reynolds of Apple Computer.

VPC incompatibility: Logitech webcam 4000 pro. March 16, 2004 -- Dick Beugeling reports that the Logitech Webcam 4000 Pro does not work with Virtual PC 6.1.1, using Windows XP or Windows 98 SE. If you can verify this, please let us know.

4D product line can now connect to Oracle 10. March 16, 2004 -- 4D, Inc., has released 4D for OCI 2003.3 (US $199), a major upgrade to 4D for OCI for Mac OS X and Windows, a plug in for the 4D database that provides Oracle Call Interface for communicating with Oracle databases. The new version adds support for Oracle 10, and increases performance. 4D Inc. also said that the new version includes enhancements for developers.

SQLitePluginPro 1.0.5 for Mac and Windows now available. March 16, 2004 -- SQLabs has released SQLitePluginPro 1.0.5 (US $119) for both Windows and Mac.SQLitePluginPro is a REALbasic database plugin that replaces REALbasic's built-in database engine. SQLite databases are fully cross-platform, so that a database created on a Mac can be opened and manipulated on Windows, Linux, Solaris, Irix and other operating systems.

Thursby releases ADmitMac v1.1.1 update, new AD Commander admin tool. March 10, 2004 -- Thursby Software has made two announcements regarding Mac integration with Active Directory. The first was regarding the release of ADmitMac v1.1.1, a free update to the Mac software that integrates Macs into Microsoft Active Directory environments. The improvements include:

• The ability to share with a Linux SMB client
• The ability to display more than 5000 users in a domain when setting ownership and permissions for a share
• Enhancements in handling Distributed File Systems (dfs)
• The ability to connect to numbered accounts while using the "Send LM and NTLM response"

Thursby Software also announced the create of its new AD Commander technology, designed for administrators responsible for maintaining Active Directory user accounts. AD Commander allows Mac users to perform basic administrative tasks for their Active Directory domain. These include:

• Resetting user passwords and enabling accounts that become disabled due to too many invalid login attempts.
• Create, modify and delete organizational users, groups, user and computer accounts.
• Configure home folders for users, handling the folder creation and setting the appropriate ownership.

(For more on Active Directory integration, see our Active Directory report page.)

PC-Mac-Net FileShare v3.2 offers enhanced Internet file sharing. March 10, 2004 --Lava Software has released PC-Mac-Net FileShare v3.2, software for sharing files and folders between Windows PCs and Macs over a local area network (LAN) or the Internet. New features include the following:

• The display detailed connection information when sharing over the Internet
• Enhanced operation of Internet file sharing
• Support for file names with Western European characters
• Support for non-English Unicode characters (such as Japanese)
• Improved file renaming in transfers from MacOS Classic to Windows, and some bug fixes.

PC-Mac-Net FileShare is offered in a free Lite Edition has a 10 MB file size limit and supports workgroups with up to 3 users. The Standard and Professional Editions have no file size limits and can join large workgroups. The Professional Edition can also encrypt file and folder data.

RegEdit advice Win 98 access Macs. March 10, 2004 -- Richard Woods sent in another suggestion for the Windows 98 problem of accessing Macs, where Windows would ask for a password when none existed:

It's been a while since I have done Samba and Windows support but I remember back in Windows 95 that a Registry edit fixed the problem described by your readers. The problem mainly has to do with the fact that Windows 9x doesn't do clear text passwords. The fix:

Start RegEdit and go to key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\VNETSUP

Create a new DWORD key named EnablePlainTextPasswords with a value of 01 and restart the PC

Snerdware AddressX 1.1 imports MS Exchange global address list into OS X. March 10, 2004 -- Snerdware released AddressX 1.1 (US $25), and update to the software that can import the contacts from a Global Address List (GAL) of a Microsoft Exchange server directly into the Mac OS X Address Book. This release fully supports Exchange 2003 Servers using forms-based authentication.

Snerdware also makes Groupcal, which allows Macs to access and manage Exchange calendars from Apple iCal.

Helios adds "smart permissions" AFP 3.1 to EtherShare. March 8, 2004 -- Helios has announced that its EtherShare AFP server for Unix now supports for AFP 3.1. Also included is Helios's "smart permissions" feature, which allows AFP users to change new files and folders without manually assigning write permissions after every save. Other features include:

• 2-to-3 times faster performance than NFS or SMB/CIFS file sharing
• Very large file support, removing the 4 GB limit
• 100 percent AFP file and directory ID compatibility
• File names up to 255 characters in length
• Client/Server reconnect support, and client sleep support

See also these release notes and downloads.

AFP Client Update 1.0 helps accessing servers from AppleWorks. March 8, 2004 -- Apple has released AFP Client Update 1.0, which is aimed at fixing some problems with AppleWorks and file sharing:

• Improves the reliability of data accessed from an AFP server when using AppleWorks."
• Prevents files from being corrupted on logout if the file is opened in AppleWorks.

Workarounds for Win 98 problems logging into Macs. March 8, 2004 -- Two readers sent in workarounds in response to our reports of problems with Windows 98 accessing Mac file servers. David Leon has a partial solution:

I've been able to log in to my Mac OS X 10.3 from Win 98 SE. The trick was to log into Win 98 SE using the same user name as the account on the Mac that has Windows Sharing enabled. I could then mount the Mac's hard drive by using that account user's ID and password.

This allows me to mount that Mac user's home folder. I could not, however, mount other partitions or external drives.

James Joiner found a way to get his Windows 98 PC to log into Mac OS X Server 10.2:

I was getting similar outcome when I tried to access (from my Windows 98 PC) files shared on my G5 running OS X 10.3.2.

I would get a dialog box that started with "connect as \\Servername\IPC$" and asked for a password. Even thought I typed in the correct password I got an error message saying the password was incorrect.

Finally, I went into the PC Control Panel, selected Passwords. I set up a password and default user ID (profile) the same as those I log into the Mac with. Now all I have to do is find the Mac using its IP number, double click and see all the shared objects with not dialog box to deal with.

Workaround for problem with VPC 6.1 Virtual Switch. March 8, 2004 -- Florian Sedivy of Vienna, Austria, sent a workaround for the Virtual PC problem with the Virtual Switch setting:

First repeat once more all the steps necessary to successfully connect on the next windows startup. If you use an undo-drive, also integrate these changes to the main HD-image. Then duplicate the HD-image file and create a second configuration in VPC that uses the duplicate as drive C: but set it to use an undo-drive and to automatically discard changes.

(You can still use this drive image in other VPC-configurations as long as all of them are set to use undo-drives and you never integrate any of them. I recommend locking the HD-image file in the Finder.)

That way every time this configuration is started by VPC, Windows should be ready to connect without any reinstallation whatsoever. No changes to any documents on the Virtual drive will be saved. But if you use this configuration only for accessing a remote site that should hardly matter.

If you've tried this, please let us know how this worked for you.

Panther creation/mod date errors when networking Mac and PC's. March 1, 2004 -- Rod Hagen of Hurstbridge, Australia noticed a problem with file creation dates when moving files from Mac OS X to Windows.

There is concern on the Apple discussions boards about problems with changes in file creation and modification dates when transferring files between Macs running Panther and Windows machines. None of the "locals" have come up with an effective solution.

If you've seen this problem, please let us know.

AFP security problem in Mac OS X. March 1, 2004 -- eWeek reported on Friday that Mac OS X 10.2.3 includes a security hole with the Apple File Protocol (AFP) that could allow passwords to be stolen.

This isn't the first time that the issue of security has come up with AFP. Mac OS X 10.2.4 fixed a previous AFP security problem in Jaguar.

Suggestion for RASPPPOE and VPC virtual switch. March 1, 2004 -- Andre Hogie of Sydney, Australia responded to a reader problem with using Raspppoe within Virtual PC. Hogie offered this advice:

I have been running a mixed PC/Mac Internet cafe for staff and I used Raspppoe as we have a pppoe service from our ISP. I gave up this software and now set the Wintel boxes to "never dial a connection" in the Internet Options/connections and have have DHCP server set. By having the user name and password in the modem this is possible and the first and best option. If your modem is too old to be able to do this then sell it and get another, as all new ones have this capability.

Suggestions for Win 98 password problem in accessing Macs. March 1, 2004 -- Several readers wrote in with suggestions for the previously reported problem of Windows 98 asking for a nonexistent password when accessing Macs as file servers.

Jeremy Matthews has a workaround:

Our company runs a nationwide tech calldesk for just about everything tech, and we had two folks with the exact same issue. Turns out that we could never find the root of the problem, but we did work around the problem by creating a simple 6-character password (common to all machines on the network) for the clients. After we created the password, bada-bing! No more asking for nonexistent passwords. Because why? Now those nonexistent passwords exist.

An unnamed reader sent this suggestion:

Try to set the non-blank password in OS X 10.3. This has worked for me.

Thomas Birle had another suggestion:

I had this same problem when connection from a Win 98 PC to a printer on a Win 2000 PC. So, probably, my solution works: it is important that the Windows username, that is the login name of the user(i.e. the name of the users profile if you there's no login window), must be present on OS X. So create this Win 98 user as new user in OS X, give him access privileges and then try again. Good luck!

Timothy McCleary

When connecting to a remote share, Windows 2000/XP will prompt for the username, password, and domain (or workgroup) to authenticate if the locally logged in user does not already have rights to the share.

However, Windows 95/98 and possibly ME do not allow you to specify a different username if the username is not valid on the remote system. It will only prompt you to try a different password.

With all that said, in order to get the Windows 98 PC to connect to the Macs, you need to set up the username/password that is being used on the Windows 98 PC on the Mac as well.

Win 98 problem browsing OS X Server 10.2. March 1, 2004 -- Ryan Hackl reports a problem with Windows 98 accessing Mac OS X Server 10.2 file service:

I'd like our Windows 98 clients to access the OS 10.2 server, so users can view their folders/files (as they do when logged on to Mac clients). When I log the Win 98 client on as "Windows logon", users can browse the network, see the Mac 10.2 server (even pinging it), but when they try to access the server, they get a "connect as \\Servername\IPC$", which indicates to me that they should log on as domain services instead. So, I change the "Server Settings" on the OS 10.2 server to be the "domain master browser" instead of the default, and change the Win 98 client to log on with "Microsoft Network Domain" (with the server's IP address as the domain name), and still the client says "no domain server found". 

I've contacted various tech supports, and have been told somewhat different stories. One says to make sure WINS is setup on the server; another says not to. I'm a bit confused.

And to make matters even more interesting: the Windows XP clients that access the OS 10.2 server can browse normally, given that the user types in their 'short name' and password.

If you've seen this problem, please let us know.

Linux box will use new Motorola G4 processor, will run Mac software. March 1, 2004 -- Genesi, a new European company, has announced that it's upcoming Pegasos PC for Linux will contain Motorola's new PowerPC G4 processor and will be able to run Macintosh application software. The version of Linux will be called MorphOS.s

February 2004

Another suggestion for problem with attachments in Outlook 2001 and Panther. February 19, 2004 -- Marcos Rivas of Argentina offered another suggestion for the problem of Outlook 2001 attachments in Mac OS X 10.3:

Try changing the file associations with the OS 9 Internet control panel in the Classic environment in OS X 10.3

Change the file association in Advanced/File mapping in the Mac OS X set for the applications where you receive the error "unable to find specified application".

Try to use an application that works in OS 9 or a carbon one. That works for me.

Panther file sharing workaround is permanent for the author. February 19, 2004 -- Greg Noneman, who sent in the workaround for the Panther file sharing problem, notes that the fix has been permanent so far:

In response to the statement that this is a temporary fix, I can only say that since first applying the fix (1-29-04), I haven't had any problem accessing my company's network.

The only complaint I have is that, unlike with Jaguar, logging on to a server does not result in a network icon being placed on the desktop. Having the desktop icon allowed quick network access when switching back-and-forth between local files/applications and network items. The way it is now, if the network window is closed, the same multiple steps required to login (less the password entry) are necessary to get back into the network directories. Accordingly, there is no apparent way to log-off the server.

His complaints on Panther's file sharing behavior were noted by MacWindows and readers when Panther was first released. These are on the MacWindows Panther Special Report page.

Discontinued SoftWindows, RealPC, work in Classic. February 19, 2004 -- In response to some of the problems with Virtual PC, a couple of readers recommending turning to some old, discontinued emulators from FWB Software (and Insignia Solutions before that). SoftWindows and Real PC are pre-OS X applications, but do run in Classic.

Gary Sammons was frustrated with Virtual PC's inability to run on G5 Macs:

If G5 owners want PC capability on their computers before Virtual PC 7.0 they can achieve it via SoftWindows 98 Version 5.1 from FWB. I bought a copy for $50 on Ebay. It is usually available every few weeks.

It takes a little work and you need an external hard drive that will boot off another Mac, preferably a G4 of some sort. What I did was boot my G4 off a Smartdisk Firelite 60gig (in OS 9.2) and installed SoftWindows on the Firelite. Then I hooked up the Firelite to my G5 (discontinued 1.8 single processor) and changed the boot partition on the G5 (Classic boot up) to the FIrelite and it works.

I am an appraiser and need to transfer pictures between the Mac and PC; SoftWindows or Virtual PC handles the conversion between PICT and JPG automatically during the copy and paste.

Internet also works .I didn't do any further testing. I use Microsoft's RDC (remote desktop control) to take care of the rest of my PC to Mac needs...(on the G5) I also use Virtual PC 6.0 on my G4, running in OS 9.2.

A. V. Pawlowski overcomes the VPC/Panther slowdown problem by running RealPC in Classic:

I wonder why my old RealPC/Win98, running under OS X 10.3.2 Classic, runs so much faster than VPC 6.1.1/Win98 on the same machine; it seems like twice as fast, at least. I may go back to it (as long as it runs), even though it has a few less features and has been discontinued.

Comment on VPC, Panther, Norton Antivirus. February 19, 2004 -- A. V. Pawlowski also had a comment on the issue of Norton Antivirus slowing down Virtual PC in Panther:

As a person supporting a large number of machines running Norton AV, I have noticed that NAV will occasionally use most of a CPU's cycle time even on a Windows machine. It happens when a scheduled, or initial Realtime Protect, scan runs in the background. On windows, however, the scan seems to run at a lower priority level than on OS X so that it is not as noticeable. This may be the reason why people are seeing the problem in VPC i.e. NAV for Mac and VPC both at high priority.

Reader problem with VPC 6.1 Virtual Switch. February 19, 2004 -- Trevor Boyko reports a problem with the Virtual PC Virtual Swich setting:

My wife needs to use an ICA Windows client to access a website that searches for a Windows version of ICA. (The webmaster is not interested in Mac compatibility.) Unfortunately, this eliminates using the Mac to access the site as well as sharing the Mac's Ethernet from VPC as the site still pings the Mac version of ICA prior to the guest OS.

I simply connect with "Virtual Switch" and RASPPPOE directly from the guest OS. The problem is, each time I turn the guest OS off or save its state, it loses the ability to connect (can not find Ethernet adapter) and the network must be completely reloaded (Load RASPPPOE protocol, restart, run RASPPPOE, rebuild network neighborhood settings, restart then log back in to the Internet.) My configuration is Quicksilver 733, OS 10.2.8., guest OS is current 98 SE but I have the same problem on XP and 95, DSL modem.  

Currently, I've been going through the reinstall process every time my wife needs to access this particular site but its starting to wear on my patience.

If you have a suggestion, please let us know.

Reader problem: Windows wants nonexistent password when accessing Macs. February 19, 2004 -- Roger Brown has a file sharing problem with the Windows 98 SE PCs on his cross-platform network:

This one is just weird. I have a mixed PC/Mac network, using iBook G4s (Mac OS X 10.3), and desktops using either Win XP Professional or Win 98 SE. All the computers can see each other. Macs can send files to PCs, no problem. XPs can send files to Macs. But the 98 SE machines keep asking for passwords to access the Macs over the network even though passwords have never been set, and none of the known passwords (including administrator and root) work. I would appreciate any thoughts on this one - it has me baffled.

If you can help with a clue, please let us know.

VPC Conflict: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. February 19, 2004 -- Mikael Olsson reported Windows application that is incompatible with Virtual PC:

I use Virtual PC 6.1 Windows 98 on Panter.

The CD-ROM of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English doesn´trun on Virtual PC.

It goes all the way until authentication but then it doesn´t go any further.

If you can verify this, please let us know.

Aladdin ships StuffIT Delux 8 in French and German. February 19, 2004 -- Yesterday, Aladdin Systems began shipping StuffIt Deluxe 8.0 in French and German. StuffIt Deluxe is cross-platform software that can compress and decompress in a number of Mac, Windows, and Unix formats. The new version allows users to schedule backups and burn to CD/DVD with Archive Assistant. There are also plug-ins for Adobe's Photoshop, Illustrator ,and PhotoElements.

More readers verify Panther file sharing workaround. February 17, 2004 -- Several more readers wrote to say that Greg Noneman's workaround to Panther's problem with PC server connections worked for them.

Phil Sandiford notes that the fix is temporary:

Your 4 Feb piece "Suggestion for Panther file sharing" notes the networking shortcuts need to be trashed and recreated (I think). I agree, if I understand the author's point.

I've had to trash the "Network" drive's icon and its contents several times since I loaded Panther. Each time, the icons are recreated when logging in and will work until I drop the network connection. After that it is a crap shoot if the icons will link correctly on the next log-in.

Cindy Dietrich:

This worked perfectly for me!I had tried everything, I was considering wiping the drive and starting from scratch, it drove me crazy. I am using G4 800 iMac running 10.3.2 and G4 450 Power Mac running the same both had problems seeing contents of different Windows shares, I applied fix per Greg's tip, now both see share contents fine.

Olivier Karfis:

I just ran into the same problem myself (it started happening I think after I upgraded from 10.3 to 10.3.2). Using Greg Noneman suggestion, I was able to see the Windows files again. Thanks!

Andy Bernstein: This worked for me, too. Thanks guys.

(This and other Panther problems are covered on our Panther Special Report page.)

Answer for Windows DFS shares and Panther question. February 17, 2004 -- Santino Rizzo has an answer to yesterday's question on Microsoft Distributed File Service shares:

DFS is just a wrapper for the actual shares. You should be able to mount each share point individually by URL.

Instead of "smb://server/dfs_share"

Use "smb://server/actual_share" for each share you need.

Panther problem with Win NT Server SFM. February 17, 2004 -- Christian Santos

I am experiencing an interesting problem. When I first installed Panther in 2003, I was able to access the school's NT server no problem. There are a number of files and folders that have different access levels for teachers and students. After I updated the two different Panther upgrades, there is a folder which I can no longer access. The school tech and I have checked permissions and IP addresses, we've looked at various network configurations. It must be something in the updates.

All of the icons that show up when my Mac logs onto the network is a standard network icon and once you click on it there are other subfolders. However the one folder which I need to get into is actually a folder icon, and nothing is in it. We noticed another icon which switched from the network icon to the folder, and I was able to see other items in it, and now I can't.

I am running a 12" PowerBook 867 MHz G4 with OS 10.3.2.

If you've seen this or have a suggestion, please let us know.

Running Outlook 2001 under Mac OS X 10.3.2; a fix and a problem. February 17, 2004 -- Regarding Panther's problem with Outlook 2001 seeing public folders on Exchange, reader Charles Killorin says "I can't see them either." However, Massimo Mauro has a suggestion:

The persons in trouble with Outlook 2001 in Panther must have just upgraded their computers (from 9 to X) and as a result Outlook 2001 does not run, because the parameters are no longer right. What one should do is instead to run the application "Outlook Settings" (under MacOS 9, but it runs under Classic) and rewrite all their settings. I can guarantee it works that way.

Mauro also has a problem with attachments with an older Exchange Server, Outlook 2001, and Mail:

We have an old Exchange Server (not even 2000 yet) with Outlook 2001 clients plus Mail.app clients (running under Panther). With this lethal mixture there seems to be no way to send attachments in a way recognized by both classes of e-mail clients. If the Panther Mail.app client send attachments as "Window friendly" then the Outlook 2001 will recognize it properly, but the reverse path does not work: one receives on the Panther Mail clients attachments embedded within a "MIME attachment" which have then to be peeled off by TNEF's Enough. This is a major pain in the neck.

As an IT professional I must say that the very limited configurability of Panther Mail (whose help details all trivia and explains no real hard issue) shows clearly that this product is far from mature and cannot be deployed in a corporate environment, even though it can talk with Exchange servers.

As we have reported before, TNEF's Enough is a Mac utility used for fixing attachments sent by Outlook for Windows.

If you've seen this or have a suggestion, please let us know.

Software KVM trick works for this reader. February 17, 2004 -- Jeff Quayle verified last weeks tips for sharing a keyboard and mouse between Mac and PC without a switch:

Just wanted to drop a note about your article "Share keyboard/mouse between Mac/PC with software". It took a little working with, but I managed to get it up and running and it's just about the coolest trick I've seen.

More potential fixes for slow VPC on Panther; Safari an issue? February 16, 2004 -- We have more reports on potential fixes for the big slowdown of Virtual PC with Mac OS X 10.3. To recap, some readers don't see the problem at all. Of those who have the problem, some have reported that a recent Apple security update solves the problem, while others report that removing Norton Antivirus for OS X or disabling the NAV Auto-Protect feature solves the problem. Today, one reader points to Panther's Safari as the culprit.

Russell Fishman agrees that turning off Norton AntiVirus AutoProtect helps VPC and other Mac apps:

With reference to your article on macwindows.com, I think your anonymous reader is having similar issues to me... I'm running Norton AntiVirus 9.01 and Personal Firewall 3.02 against Mac OS X 10.3.2, and I was shocked to find that the AutoProtect process was using almost 40 percent of my 1.25 GHz PowerBook G4's processor! I had thought that my Mac had been somewhat sluggish lately. Turning the AutoProtect feature off has restored my G4 to it's former glory. I guess there's a bug in there. I've submitted a case to Symantec, so let's see what they do to resolve the issue.

Mark Einreinhof is not running Panther, but noticed something odd about Norton Antivirus:

Regarding the slow down with Norton Auto-protect : I noticed this using the "top" command in a shell window in Terminal. Real Time Protect was jumping between 65-to-95 percent CPU usage on my 17" PowerBook running Jaguar. I also noticed that turning off the Real Time Protect brought the CPU usage back down to normal. I decided to leave my laptop on over night and see if this Real Time Protect needed to run its course. Sure enough, the next day, CPU usage was normal and my laptop has been fine ever since then.

Eric Schweitzer saw Safari as the the problem:

I've also seen a dramatic slow down in Virtual PC 5.0.5 using 10.3.2. I did find the problem is cured by a restart (not just logging out). After much troubleshooting, I determined that Safari seems to be causing the problem.

If you start with a clean system, VPC runs fine. If you run Safari, the system is somehow "poisoned" and VPC slows to a crawl. (Two hours to start Windows is about what I'm seeing as well.) Quitting Safari has no effect, the system must be restarted.

I thought the problem was with VPC 5 and ordered the upgrade to version 6. It looks like VPC 6 has the same issue.

I'm not running Norton or any other virus protection software on this system.

Ronald Atkinson notes that NAV in Windows (as opposed to in OS X) has no effect:

I've followed this thread for a while since I have the exact same problem. I have some Windows 2000 disk images, both with and without the corporate version of Norton Antivirus, and disabling it has no affect for me.

Granted the corporate version is different than the consumer version, but my disk images without it still ran very slow. Just today I took an image and installed antivirus on it, and there was no difference other than the normal changes that occur when antivirus software is running.

The change is so minor that it's barely noticeable. Disabling it may help some people, however it makes no difference for me, plus my images without any antivirus as slow.

A recent update to Panther did help as some have reported, however it's still not as fast as it was with Jaguar.

I have a 15-inch aluminum 1.25 GHz PowerBook G4 (the latest that's out I believe) and my VPC images in both Windows 2000 Professional and FreeBSD 5.2 with 196 MB or RAM all report a 299 MHz CPU. I have an old 300 MHz Dell laptop laying around with 96 MB of RAM and it's significantly faster than my Virtual PC images are.

Tips and questions for running Panther with Active Directory. February 16, 2004 -- We've received more reader comments on integrating Mac OS X 10.3 with Microsoft Active Directory. (For previous reports, see the MacWindows Active Directory Special Report page.)

First, Klaus Banse has a problem with Microsoft Distributed File Service:

We were successful in getting authentication through Active Directory. It was quite simple using the Panther AD plugin in Directory Access. The unfortunate part is, our PC server uses Microsoft Distributed File Service or DFS. That doesn't work with Panther. We can't see any of the shares. We could use ADmitMac but unfortunately, we don't want to spend that much on a file browser. Any suggestions?

If you can offer advice or have had a similar experience, please let us know.

Emil Lundberg of Sweden has some suggestions for successful binding to Active Directory:

The two gotchas I've seen so far in binding Panther to AD:

1) If you're using ".local" for top AD domain (the horror!), the aforementioned fix from Apple will indeed make Panther query the DNS in the correct way (you will still see Rendezvous multicast traffic, but never mind).

2) If, however, you are using ANY nonofficial top domain (.local, .myowndomain, etc) for your AD (and many will, as the local IT department might not want to see their DNS servers replaced by Windows machines), you HAVE to make sure there is a reverse lookup entry to match you server (i.e. if your server is adserver.example.mydomain and maps itself to 123.234.123.2, then 123.234.123.2 MUST map to adserver.example.mydomain). If not, you'll be stuck with "Invalid Forest and Domain combination" forever. This can be accomplished in two ways:

a) (More difficult) Talk the IT department into delegating the responsibility for your subnet (e.g. 123.234.123.x) to your AD-server(s). This might be more than you can chew, so

b) (Easier) Have an entry for each of your AD servers added to the "official" reverse zone (again, e.g. 123.234.123.x), keeping the official name in place. Thus the server 123.234.123.2 will have the following PTR records:

123.234.123.2 PTR adserver.example.realdomain.

123.234.123.2 PTR adserver.example.mydomain.

AD binding is a matter of seconds after this. Haven't seen any detrimental effects of the double of records so far (actually, DNS seems to send both names back).

Steve Dockery offers a step-by-step process for authenticating with Panther:

In Jaguar, I looked around (in vain) for a good way to get the Mac to authenticate with Active Directory (AD) without having to purchase a third-party utility. When I got Panther, I hoped it would be as simple to connect to AD as it is with a Windows machine (which is pretty straightforward). It was not. I'm not an Active Directory expert at all, and everything seems to expect you to know about search bases, etc, which I knew nothing about.

I downloaded a demo version of ADmitMac, but because I got swamped with work, didn't have time to properly evaluate it before the demo time ran out.

Today I figured I'd try again with Panther. I looked up "Configuring Access to an Active Directory Domain" in Directory Access Help, and followed the directions. Here's what happened:

1. I opened Directory Access, made sure Active Directory was checked, and double-clicked it.

2. For the both the AD forest and the AD domain, I put in our network domain (our servers are running WINS and DNS).

3. For the computer ID, I put in the (short) name that I use to log onto our windows server and exchange email, both of which authenticate with AD.

4. I clicked BIND, and supplied it with my same short name and my password. Then, the tricky part. I guessed, based on the example, what to put in as the computer OU. I put in

"CN=Computers,DC=ourdomainname,DC=com"

5. I clicked OK, and it successfully bound to our AD server. I did not have to do anything to LDAPv3, I left it alone.

Now any user can log into my machine, and it will create a home folder on my machine for that user. While logged in as that user, the user appears in the Accounts preferences pane as a "network user," but they are not permanently added as a user. Once they log out, the user account goes away, but the home folder remains, pretty much just like it works on Windows.

However, I discovered my password would now no longer work for the server or email. I had to go to the server, log in as the admin, and reset my password (God knows what it got changed to when I did the BIND, or why, I use the same password everyplace).

After I set all this up, I looked in the AD Users and Computers on the AD server, and my computer name from the Sharing Preferences Pane was there.

When we roll out Panther on all our Macs in the next few months, I'll just create an admin account on each of them, and set up AD, then I can centrally manage users and passwords like I do with our PCs.

Apple releases AFP Client Update v1.0 for Jaguar and AppleWorks. February 16, 2004 -- Last week, Apple released AFP Client Update v1.0 for Mac OS X 10.2.6, 10.2.7, and 10.2.8. Apple says the update "improves the reliability of data accessed from an AFP server when using AppleWorks. This update also prevents files from being corrupted on logout if the file is opened in AppleWorks."

OS X WebDAV only sees 1023.4 MB available. February 16, 2004 -- Germ Steel seeks a patch for Window NT WebDAV:

Here's my OS X WebDAV problem. I only see 1023.4 MB available in my shared directory when there should be 60GB. There is an explanation by William Carrel on the devdav mailing list. There's a patch for mod_dav at Carrel.org.

Unfortunately my Apache 2.0.48 host is a Windows NT 4.0 SP6 machine. It would be great if someone could supply a patched mod_dav for NT to use with my OS X webdav client.

If you know of one, please let us know.

Norton Antivirus blamed for VPC slowdown on Panther. February 12, 2004 -- An anonymous reader put the blame for the big slowdown of Virtual PC in Mac OS X 10.3 on a feature of Norton Antivirus:

I saw a significant slowdown with Virtual PC after upgrading to Panther. I corrected the problem by turning Norton Antivirus' Auto-Protect to OFF. You can find the setting in System Preferences, at the top of the Norton Auto-Protect panel.

To see the problem, run the Activity Monitor (in Utilities) and select Show Activity Monitor in the Monitor menu. In the upper right corner pulldown menu, select show All Processes, then click on the "%CPU" title in the list, to sort the most CPU-intensive processes to the top. I noticed that for most Virtual PC activities, including startup from a saved state and running various Windows programs, Norton Antivirus would kick in and consume half the CPU. That is what made Virtual PC unacceptably slow.

Since disabling Norton Antivirus auto-protect, Virtual PC performance has returned to pre-Panther (excellent) levels.

I am running Mac OS 10.3.2, Windows 2000 (self-installed) on Virtual PC 6.0, and Norton Antivirus 9.0.1 on a 1 GHz Ti PowerBook.

If you've been experiencing the Virtual PC slowdown with Panther, please let us know if turning off Norton Antivirus Auto-Protect helps your situation.

We've had lots of reports of people not having a problem, but more people have reported having slowdowns. Here is one more from Robert Abatecola:

I upgraded to Panther and Virtual PC 6.1.1 recently. VPC is completely unusable. It took a Windows 2000 virtual machine over 2 hours to boot. Even Linux under VPC is too slow to be useful.

Reader reports intermittent net disconnects with ExtremeZ-IP. February 12, 2004 -- John Gibson has an intermittent problem with ExtremeZ-IP than he can't track down:

I am am the network admin for a small agency in the Chicago Area. We have been using Extreme Zip for about 4 years now and love the product.

Here is the issue that we are running into. Two of our creative staff (these are the only two using OS X, besides me, and I don't really live on the server) will be working on documents and save to the server and get the spinning pizza of death (multicolor spinner of doom... you know what I am talking about) and then will get disconnected from the server. Or they will go to copy a file to the server and then get this.

This has happened on Windows NT 4.0 SP 6 with ExtremeZ-IP and also Windows 2003 with Extreme Z-IP.

One of the production systems was just switched out for a G5 dual 2.0 system (from a Dual 1.0 G4 system). Both systems exhibited the same problems. The crazy thing is that it is intermittent, and hard to track down, but I do know it is happening when files are being saved or transferred to the file server.

If you've seen this problem or have a suggestion, please let us know.

Yahoo Chess works again for Macs. February 12, 2004 -- The reader who first reported that Yahoo Chess was no longer working with Macs notes that his Mac can once again work with it:

Yahoo changed something on the chess site. I can see the chess pieces again. They're not exactly the same as they were but it's a lot better now. Maybe people complained, but Yahoo seem to have made it Mac compatible.

More on Outlook 2001 problems with Panther. February 12, 2004 -- Luis Antezana reports having the problem with Outlook 2001 and Panther, and reports when he did and didn't have the problem:

I've followed with some curiosity the reader reports of problems with Outlook 2001 and Panther. In the course of our upgrade from 10.2.8 directly to 10.3.2, I've had no problems getting any of my users working with Outlook 2001 right from the same Applications (Mac OS 9) folder as usual. I've upgraded one machine directly, and the rest of the computers were completely wiped, then cloned using Carbon Copy Cloner from a generic disk image I created from a freshly wiped and installed computer with all the customizations and installations required.

This worked without problems, until I did one thing differently. When setting the first user's (after the administrator account, that is) Classic preferences, I clicked the Rebuild Desktop button. When trying to set up this user for Outlook 2001, I then had the same experience that others have reported: Outlook Settings works fine and the server responds during the profile creation, but various errors occur when launching Outlook 2001 itself, preventing a successful launch.

Creating a disk image to run Outlook was not an option for me. I tried the obvious things, deleting pref files, repairing permissions, Disk Warrior, and re-specifying permissions on the Applications (Mac OS 9) and Outlook 2001 folders using BatChmod. No change. There were different ways to add and check the mailbox name which resulted in different errors on launch of Outlook, but ultimately it would fail to connect.

I wondered if my difficulties were because this was the first new account I'd created after a cloned install. My previous successful Outlook users were all ones whose accounts had worked under Jaguar and had their user folders copied into the Users directory. Maybe Panther didn't support new account creation in Outlook. So I tried to import an existing account from another user on a Jaguar machine, but that did not work either.

My easy answer to restoring Outlook 2001 connectivity was not clever, but at least it was easy (and satisfying). I simply wiped the offending box, re-cloned, and configured as my usual routine, after which setting up the new user and their Outlook 2001 worked like a charm.

I did some investigation into a hypothesis about possible invisible files, their permissions, and their influence on Outlook 2001 failures. I searched for invisible files created as a result of trying to open Outlook 2001, but there weren't any, so it seems that can't be the reason.

Also, changing the permissions of the invisible Temporary Items folder did not have any effect. Cloning a machine from a known good disk image still allows me to get a functional Outlook account, and it's ultimately much faster than troubleshooting if you're in a pinch for time.

SQLabs releases SQLiteAddOns 1.0 for Mac, SQLiteManager beta. February 12, 2004 -- SQLabs is now shipping SQLiteAddOns 1.0 (US $39) for Mac OS X, an AppleScript Scripting Addition that enables AppleScripts to access an SQL database. With SQLiteAddOns, application that supports AppleScript can have full access to an SQL database. The company describes it:

SQLiteAddOns is built on top of SQLite, an SQL92-compliant, embeddable, stand-alone database library. SQLite database residing locally on a user's computer, and not on a remote server. SQLite's on-the-fly indexing and ACID transactions ensure that databases built with SQLiteAddOns are both fast and free from corruption.

SQLabs is also now running a free public beta program for SQLiteManager1.0b2, a database manager for SQLite databases. SQLiteManager is available for Mac OS and Windows. You can use it to create and browse tables, indexes, and views, as well as to insert, remove, and edit table records, and execute arbitrary SQL statements. You can also save commonly used SQL scripts directly in any database.

Groupcal Viewer utility enables iCal to subscribe to Exchange calendars. February 9, 2004 -- Today Snerdware released Groupcal Viewer 1.0 (US $30), a Mac OS X utility that enables you to subscribe to a Microsoft Exchange-based calendar directly from Apple iCal. Groupcal Viewer lets you use iCal to subscribe to not only your own Exchange, but to calendars kept in any Exchange Public folder or any calendar for which you are a delegate. You do this by entering the URL of the Exchange folder containing the calendar.(See also the press release.)

If you need to publish to Exchange from iCal, you can use Groupcal 1.0 (US $65).

Snerdware also offers AddressX, allows access to the Exchange Global Address List from the OS X Address Book. Addresses in the GAL appear in Address Book. AddressX is free.

Groupcal, Groupcal Viewer, and AddressX install on a Mac and work with Exchange 2000 and 2003.

Opening attachments with Outlook 2001 and Panther. February 9, 2004 -- Mark Cole verified a problem with opening attachments using Outlook 2001 running in Panther:

I can confirm Michael Wilmer's observation about Outlook 2001 no longer opening attachments from within Outlook. This did work for all versions of 10.1 and Jaguar, but was broken starting with 10.3.0.

Michele Corum has a suggestion for opening attachments:

Welcome to the wonderful world of Microsoft Outlook 2001 running in Classic! I find that having the following applications launched helps me to open attachments and hyperlinks in Outlook 2001: Word, Excel, Acrobat, Explorer. However, many times I still need to copy to attachment to my desktop to open.

Panther 10.2.3 helps with running Outlook 2001. February 9, 2004 -- Three readers wrote to say that the most recent 10.3.2 upgrade helps with running Outlook 2001 in Panther:

Christopher Kasper:

Apparently, 10.3.2 addressed the Outlook 2001 issue. I also have seen that Outlook 2001 was not working on 10.3. Someone on the Hi-Resolution MA3 newsgroup posted that 2001 worked after installing the 10.3.2 update. I tried it and sure enough, it did work. There are issues such as needing to type your password in twice to login but it does function. I was even able to get it to print.

 Karen Bowerman:

OutLook 2001 client works for me now in 10.3.2. It did not work in the earlier versions of 10.3. We are running Exchange Server 2000.

 Jay Christianson:

I just happened to talk to a student the other day who said it was working fine...so I tried it again. Not sure, but it seems somewhere between 10.3 and 10.3.2 it started working again.

I hadn't seen any mention of it...so I kind of dismissed it as a lost cause.

But now, it appears to work fine without any of the weird permissions, disk images, or other tricks that were listed as fixes before.

Printing from a Mac to Windows XP spooler. February 9, 2004 -- Reid Lewis, President of Group Logic, Inc., responded to last week's description of printing from Jaguar to a Windows XP shared printer, and says that his company's ExtremeZ-IP would be an easier way to go: 

I read your article with interest - what a hassle! Clearly beyond most Mac users tolerance.

This is the problem that our ExtremeZ-IP "IP Print Support" option is designed to fix. Specifically, make printing over TCP/IP as easy as the using the Chooser. That's what Mac users expect (and deserve). Not the tedious 11-step process your reader described.

I encourage your readers to install the Trial of IP Print Support or arrange for a WebEx demonstration. Screen shots can be viewed online.

TIP: Share keyboard/mouse between Mac/PC with software. February 6, 2004 -- Two readers sent in two different software methods of using one keyboard and mouse with two computers, a Mac and a PC. These software methods don't use KVM switches.

Bhavesh Patel tells about a utility called osx2x, which you use with either X11 (also known as the X Window System) or with the free VNC:

I've got a dual-headed desktop, though one is my G4 and the other is my Dell. Until today I've had two keyboards and mice on the desk to control each machine.

Today I saw osx2x mentioned on MacInTouch. This free software allows you to use a single Keyboard/Mouse with multiple machines over a network connection - either X Window (unix/linux) or VNC (Windows).

So I installed VNC server on my Dell and osx2x on my G4. Now when I roll the Mac mouse off the left edge of my Mac Display, the mouse rolls over onto my PC display. Keyboard control follows.

Very slick and no KVM needed!

We would point out that X Window (also known as X11) is included with Mac OS X 10.3.

Bryan Derman mentioned KMremoteControl (US $25 for two machines), software that runs on Windows 2000/XP and the Mac OS X 10.2 and later.

Suggestions for Panther file sharing with Windows. February 6, 2004 -- Two readers wrote in with suggestions for fixing file sharing problems with Mac OS X 10.3 and Windows. Joe Becker verified the suggestion we posted a few days ago by Greg Noneman:

I too have had problems with my PowerBook G-4 running Panther 10.3 seeing our Windows 2000 server. While, I am able to use the Connect to Server function to view share folders and the file they contain, I have had continuing difficulty browsing shares and folders in Finder. Sometimes it would work but mostly it would not. I'm tried several of the tips posted on MacWindows for solving the share browsing issue but they too have worked only intermittently. This most recent tip posted on 2/4 by Greg Noneman seems to have solved the problem for me. It's only been one day but the tip as explained worked the first time I tried it. I'll continue experimenting with this fix on my other laptop and desktops in our office to resolve the Panther/Windows Server connection issue.

Galen Sprague

I was having trouble with browsing and accessing certain directories and volumes on my work network after upgrading to Panther. I found that there were a few files (cached?) in /private/var/automount/Network/. After deleting these files, the problems went away and my Windows networking returned to normal.

There's more on this at Mac OS X Hints.

Configure Jaguar printing to a Windows XP shared printer. February 6, 2004 --Bob O'Connor sent us a step-by-step procedure for using Mac OS X 10.2 to print to a printer connected to Windows XP:

Steps to Configure Printing from Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) to a Windows XP Shared Printer

1) On the Windows XP computer, if the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) is enabled, open both TCP and UDP ports 137, 138, and 139. These are the ports used for SMB file sharing.

2) On the Windows XP computer, share the printer by going to Start - Control Panels - Printers. Right click on the printer icon and select "Sharing". Select the radio button "Share this Printer" and give it a name (without any spaces).

3) On the Windows XP computer, write down the Workgroup name, Computer name, Printer share name, a valid user name and password (and IP address for testing connectivity)

4) On the Macintosh, try to ping the IP address of the Windows computer (To test connectivity)

5) On the Macintosh, Install GhostScript and Gimp-Print.

6) Open Print Center

7) Hold down the "Option" key while clicking on "Add Printer".

8) Select "Advanced" and then "Windows via SAMBA".

9) Type in a name for the printer. This will appear in the Mac's Print dialog.

10) For the printer address, use the following form:

smb://Workgroup;username:password@Computer_Name/Printer_Share_Name

11) Make sure the Windows computer is on when you want to print.

VPC 6.1 and Panther Security Update - still slow for one reader. February 6, 2004 -- Although several readers have reported that a recent Mac OS X 10.3 Security Update boosted the speed of Virtual PC, reader Paul daS had the opposite experience:

I installed the Security Update for 10.3 and noticed my VPC 6.0 performance decreased markedly.

After reading this thread and thinking that they may go hand in hand, I upgraded VPC to 6.1 and the performance deteriorated further. I'd like to roll both back. VPC 6.1 is now unusable for me. I'm a newbie (Dec) and would appreciate any help/directions or basic kicks in the head to set me straight.

VPN Tracker 2.2.5 released. February 6, 2004 -- Eqinux has released VPN Tracker 2.2.5, a free update to the virtual private network client for Mac OS X. There new version adds an improved user experience for editing connection types and fixes minor problems.

Free version of PC-Mac PasswordVault released. February 5, 2004 -- Lava Software is now offering PC-Mac PasswordVault Lite v2.0, a free version of the company's utility that stores encrypted information for accessing websites, Internet banking data, and software registration details for Macs and Windows PCs. The free Lite Edition of PC-Mac PasswordVault supports up to 10 services; the Standard Edition (US $ 15) supports any number of services.

The new version adds import and export of service data (for easy backup, printing or transfer to another computer), a fast lockout button, a web address button, and some interface improvements.

Suggestion for Panther file sharing. February 4, 2004 -- Greg Noneman has a suggestion for getting around Panther's file sharing problem:

I thought I would pass this along in case it helps others out.

Ever since I upgraded to 10.3, I have not been able to access files on my company's Windows 2000 server. My particular symptoms were as follows:

I could see and log on to the server. Shares would appear, yet upon opening the volumes, no files could be viewed.

None of the fixes that have been suggested over the past months (or updates, currently running 10.3.2) has solved the problem.

Recently I tried the following: Once I was logged-on and viewing the shares, I threw all the shares into the trash. I restarted the computer then re-logged into the server. Voila! The shares reappeared and could be opened normally, allowing accessibility to all files.

I'm not sure what in 10.3 caused the apparent corruption of the networking information, but apparently the above procedure clears the problem. The same procedure resolved problems on both my PowerBook G4 and desktop (Quicksilver) G4.

If you've tried this, please let us know.

Reader verify: Panther Security Update speeds VPC. February 4, 2004 -- Several readers have verified last week's report that the latest Apple security update improves Virtual PC performance. For instance, Dave Leary says:

Yes, I tried VPC again after the Apple Security Update and it is faster. Actually I should say it is less slow. No one is going to mistake this for even the slowest PC on the planet, but it may be usable again.

Michael Bonnette has some numbers:

I have a CodeWarrior palm OS project that went from approximately 11 minutes back down to 7.5 minutes. It seems like before Panther it was around 6 minutes but I don't have any data to support that number.

CrystalFire Wormhole 1.1.0, cross-platform file transfer--big file support. February 4, 2004 -- CrystalFire has released CrystalFire Wormhole (US $15, free update), an update to the small application that gives you drag and drop file sharing. This release adds the ability to transfer large files over 2 GB in size. There are also improved Installer/Uninstall capabilities on Windows, and other tweaks.

Mac IMAP clients cannot see Exchange Public Folders. February 4, 2004 -- Josh Wilmoth is having the problem reported last week with an inability to see Exchange's public folders with IMAP clients such as Mail. If you've seen it, please let us know.

Reader problem with attachments in Outlook 2001 and Panther. February 4, 2004 -- Michael Wilmar has a problem with opening attachments from Outlook 2001:

I have recently bought a new PowerBook with Panther preinstalled. I use it in my office, where I must interface with an Exchange Server for email. Our IT staff is not yet ready to enable IMAP and the other features that are needed to make Entourage for Exchange Server fully functional, or indeed functional at all. As a result, I am stuck with Outlook 2001 for a while.

I am finding that, except for Word documents, I cannot open attachments (e.g., .html or .pdf files) from within Outlook. I have to save them to the Desktop and open them from there. The message I get is "The application associated with this attachment cannot be started."

Outlook Help says that Outlook looks to the PC Exchange Control Panel for conversions. However, this Control Panel is not supported in Classic. Has anybody found a way to open attachments from within Outlook?

If you have a suggestion, please let us know.

Outlook 2001 and Exchange 2003

January 28, 2004
Lorraine asked if Outlook 2001 runs with Exchange 2003 Server:

My company has been running Exchange 2000 and we have been connecting from our Macs using both Outlook 2001:mac and Entourage X okay. The network admins are planning to upgrade to Exchange 2003 soon, and will be doing it in such a way that we will not have opportunity to test Mac compatability in advance.

I am looking for any information on whether Outlook 2001:mac and Entourage X work with Exchange 2003, and if there any any known issues.

Several readers report that it works just fine. One reader had a problem.

February 4, 2004
Greg Krabbenhoft:

I recently upgraded our exchange server to 2003 and have found no adverse effects using either mail.app or outlook 2001:mac. Everything seems to work just as it did before.

February 4, 2004
Brian Hoppe:

The company I work for recently upgraded to Exchange 2003 Server. In our experience, it was a smooth, uneventful upgrade (at least as far as Outlook 2001 compatibility is concerned). There have been no issues or problems with connectivity or functionality that I am aware of. Most of the 10 Macs in our organization are still running Mac OS 9.1 or 9.2.x. (there are also several hundred PCs, mostly running Windows XP or Windows 2000). I am the primary end-user support person for our Mac users, and I'm sure I would have immediately heard if there were issues.

I've also done some informal testing of Outlook 2001 under Mac OS X 10.3 on an iBook. As has been reported previously on MacWindows, Outlook 2001 wouldn't run under Mac OS X 10.3 until I created a self-mounting disk image and copied Outlook to it. After I did this, Outlook runs and connects properly to the Exchange 2003 server. I have not tried the latest version of Entourage X with Exchange support.

February 4, 2004
Christopher Kasper

I run an Exchange 2003 Server using both Outlook 2001 and Entourage X clients. I have not noticed any problems with either piece of software resulting from migrating to Exchange 2003. They work fine

Jay Christianson, however, has a problem:

Run from either 9 native, or 9 Classic within 10.2 or less (not 10.3), Outlook 2001 appears to function fine against the 2003 server.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, no one has been able to reliably get 2001 running in Classic under 10.3.

There are big threads on the permissions issues involved, and the fixes listed to date apparently don't work for all users.

If you have a suggestion for Christianson, please let us know.

January 2004

Fixing VPC/Panther slowdowns: Security update, other. January 28, 2004 -- John Dougherty reports that the recent Apple Security Update to Mac OS X 10.3 solved his problem with slow Virtual PC performance in Panther:

I upgraded my three computers with the security update and Airport update yesterday, and amazingly, the slowdowns with VPC 6.1 have vanished. I don't know which update was responsible, but all is well now. Recap- iMac 20", TiBook 667, G4 Cube 450, all with OS X Panther 10.3.2. Only the Cube worked before, but I hadn't updated to 10.3.2 on the Cube until today (I thought that may have been the culprit).

If you've installed this update and had VPC performance problems with Panther, please let us know if this solved the problem for you.

Kevin Montgomery stopped running a piece of software:

I too found Virtual PC 6.1 to be unbelievably slow! For me, the problem turned out to be an installation of Henwen I was running to monitor my Internet activity for anything nasty. Once I stopped running Henwen, Virtual PC's speed picked up immediately.

Suggestions for problem with Virtual PC and Panther with dual monitors. January 28, 2004 -- Several people have written with suggestions for one reader's problem with a previously reported reader problem with Virtual PC, Panther, and dual monitors. Matthew Smith recommends looking for graphics drivers:

I know that ATI has some driver software available on their website that supports their retail version cards. There may be something of use there. I would definitely check that out before going back to 10.2.6. There is a ROM update for the Radeon 7000 and there are some ATI display utilities that work with the panther drivers that might come in handy. Go to the support section of ATI's website and search for drivers.

Derek Gordon successfully uses two monitors with VPC:

I have a dual monitor setup as well, and do not have the same problem. He should probably look at the VPC preferences, there is an option for Full Screen Mode Preferences, He prob. has it set to Don't adjust.

Paul Vitello offered several tips:

I have been running dual monitors since 10.3 released. It does work on both but the can be tricky. I pamper VPC as I would anything Windows that you don't want to disrupt or to just "blow up." I have it working consistently on 17" PowerBook and 22" Apple Cinema Display.

Occasionally the full screen won't resize to the full screen In that case I find that shutting down the PC and restarting will fix this -- I also I quit VPC and restart it. Most all of the time, however, I do a save state.

In windowed mode, when dragging from the 22" to the 17" you have to move the window "out of view" (to the left-off the screen), then drag the VPC window open (or larger). The window should "snap" the entire screen width at that point.

At any point you can hit the Apple + Enter" keys and you should go to full screen mode. This works most of the time but occasionally it will not expand the Windows desktop to the extent of the screen-- instead, the PC will remain the same size as the windowed version and I'll end up with a black boarder around it making up any difference in screen space. When that happens I reboot the PC (quitting VPC after) then start VPC and then start the PC. That always fixes that particular issue. I don't think that quitting VPC is necessary but it only takes another second and seems more thorough.

Mac OS X-native topo map software. January 28, 2004 -- Peter Luke responded to reports of problems with Windows topo map software running in Virtual PC to say that there is now a native Mac OS X version of National Geographic TOPO (which means you wouldn't need Virtual PC.) "I have the version covering SE United States and it runs very well on my iBook, " said Luke.

Reader verifies fix for VPC printing problem. January 28, 2004 -- Glenn Peterson wrote to say that a previously reported suggestion fixed his printing problem with Virtual PC:

Just wanted to let you know that I checked the solution that Guy reported and it worked for me. I had always had to check the USB settings via VPC every time I wanted to print but never had to check the port that was used. I looked in printer properties and sure enough it was using the LPT port. I changed it to USB and I'm printing like crazy.

New Iogear KVM switches that allow users to share audio. January 28, 2004 -- Iogear introduced two new KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switches, the MiniView Micro USB Plus (US $80) and MiniView Micro Audio KVM (US $60), which can be used to share a mouse, keyboard, monitor, and now speakers, between a Mac and a PC. Both models include built-in six-foot cables support of high video resolutions.

Re: Mac IMAP clients cannot see Exchange Public Folders. January 28, 2004 -- Richard Jenkins responded to a reader problem with IMAP clients and Exchange:

I can read messages in Public Folders on our Exchange 5.5 Server with Mail.app on 10.3.2, and have been able to for a few years. The configuration of the servers seems to be a factor - our Public Folders are hosted on the server that does IMAP, otherwise IMAP clients wouldn't be able to see them.

We have an Exchange 2003 system in testing at the moment and I can have a look at the issue on that if there's interest - from memory it worked fine, but that's just from memory...

Question: how well does Outlook 2001 run with Exchange 2003? January 28, 2004 -- A reader named Lorraine would like to know if Outlook 2001 runs with Exchange 2003 Server:

My company has been running Exchange 2000 and we have been connecting from our Macs using both Outlook 2001:mac and Entourage X okay. The network admins are planning to upgrade to Exchange 2003 soon, and will be doing it in such a way that we will not have opportunity to test Mac compatability in advance.

I am looking for any information on whether Outlook 2001:mac and Entourage X work with Exchange 2003, and if there any any known issues.

If you can shed some light, please let us know.

CDFinder 4.2.1 disk cataloging adds Panther support.</