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Working Together - Your Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows

By Lasa Information Systems Team

One barrier to using an Apple Mac in the office has been a lack of compatibility between Mac computers and Windows fileservers and Windows Exchange Servers. Apple Mac’s have traditionally been associated with education and creative arts, rarely breaking through into the world of the Windows dominated office. However, that has changed with the introduction of Apple OS 10.4. In this article, we’ll outline how easy it can be to connect a Mac to a Windows network, Windows network printer and Windows Exchange server.

As the price of Apple Mac’s has fallen, more and more people have thought about buying one for their office. Macs after all have a reputation for reliability, require less IT support, and well… just look so good on the desk. 

However, more than one systems administrator has given up after failing to connect a Mac to the Windows fileserver or Exchange Server.  Much of this is do with Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows using different technologies and protocols to communicate.

The latest release of Mac OS 10.4, and some handy tools from Microsoft now makes the Mac an almost equal player in a Windows network, and a very attractive buying proposition for IT administrators.  Just to show how easy it has become, this whole article was written on an iMac, connected to the Lasa fileserver running Microsoft Small Business Server 2000.

At the end of this article there is a tutorial your Systems Administrator or IT Support Company can download that steps through how to connect a Mac to your Windows network.

Benefits of connecting a Mac to a Windows fileserver

Mac OS 10.4 now includes a variety of technologies that enable it and Windows to work seamlessly together. This is good news for a number of reasons, as we can now:

• Integrate Mac computers into Windows networks that use Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange
• Access files on Windows file servers or make files on a Mac available to Windows users
• Exchange email (including attachments) with Windows users
• Share the same network with Windows PCs using dial-up, Ethernet, or 802.11b/g (WiFi, AirPort Extreme) wireless connections
• Print to a Windows network printer or share a Mac printer with Windows users
• Use Virtual Private Networks to connect to the Windows network

But why else would we want to buy a Mac and go to the trouble of hooking it up to our Windows network?

Macs are getting cheaper

Traditionally associated with folks prepared to pay a premium for design and reliability, the price of Macs is beginning to come down now that they have Intel chips inside.  As of writing, £799 (inc VAT) will buy a 17” iMac with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard disk and built in mail and calendar applications. The nearest equivalent we can find from Dell, the OptiPlex 745 Essential DT plus a 17” flat panel monitor, retails for £797 (inc VAT).

Macs are more secure

The best evidence we have for this is that according to research by Sophos (anti-virus software maker) there were only four known OS X viruses, compared with roughly 80,000 for Windows, as of June 2006.

Macs are more reliable

We don’t have empirical evidence to demonstrate this, but in the two months we’ve been using the iMac, 2 PCs have completely died and needed a clean install to get them working again.

Sharing files with Windows servers and PCs 

Mac OS 10.4 uses an open source protocol called Samba to connect seamlessly with a Windows server or PC that has file sharing turned on.  This means that your Mac and Windows PCs can now open, edit, save, and copy the same files using a folder or directory that’s common to both of them. 

Connecting to Exchange Server

Lack of connectivity with Microsoft Exchange Server has been a major barrier to offices taking up Apple Macs, leaving them cast as executive toys.  All you need to connect to the Exchange Server in a few simple steps is Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac and the latest Office patches.

Printing using a Windows network printer

Your Mac can also print to Windows networked printers.  All you need is Print Services for Mac installed on the server.

Applications not available for Apple Mac

Another reason many people haven’t bought into Macs is that many of their business software applications didn’t run on the Mac.  This is certainly true of many specialised accounting packages and customised Access databases.  However, Apple’s release of Bootcamp means that we can now install a licensed copy of Windows XP alongside OS 10.4 and work with windows applications whenever we need to, all without leaving our Mac.  Bootcamp is currently available as a free public beta for testing purposes, and will be commercially available in OS 10.5 from early 2007 onwards.

If you’re thinking of buying a Mac for your office, the chances are that you’ve been told it’s an expensive luxury not a business machine, and that it won’t work with the Windows network

Our tutorial (see further resources below) aims to show that Mac and Windows now work together better than ever before to create a seamless working environment.  Of course, you’ll need to install some Mac services on the Windows fileserver before you can get started.  But in our experience it took 2-3 hours to install Mac services, bind the Mac to the fileserver and connect to networked printers.  Once we’d installed Office for Mac 2004, connecting to Exchange Server was similarly straight-forward.

Finally, in the 2 months we’ve been testing the iMac, it’s worked seamlessly with the Windows fileserver and Exchange Server so that we can check our mail, view calendar appointments and schedule meetings, as we would expect to at our Windows computer.  The barriers between Macs and Windows are falling and investing in a Mac for your office is a sound IT and business decision.

Further Resources

Advanced Tutorial: Working Together – Your Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows

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