a post that's not about bikes--shocker!

UPDATE: Library is transferred. The advice of the lovely commenters was dead on...the solution was to buy a big ol' USB drive and give up on the XP-Mac network. After all that frustration, I think it took longer to buy the drive than it did to transfer the files. All hail sneakernet!

Confidential to my husband's officemate who shall remain nameless (let's call him Bob): This is no reflection on my troubleshooting skills, dude. I just don't have enough patience or ego to make it worth my while to work on it any longer. :)

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ok, so we needed a new computer at home. And I kind of hate what I've seen of Vista, so I decided that now would be as good a time as any to switch to a Mac. I mean, I love my ipod, and all those clever commercials can't be wrong, right? Besides, the new iMacs are pretty.

So, bonus day rolls along, and I run out and buy a brand new iMac. So far so good--it's fast, it is indeed pretty, it fits perfectly in the little space in the hutch of the desk, and I'm mostly adjusting to the interface changes...

But.

I CANNOT GET IT TO SEE MY WINDOWS SHARES SO I CAN TRANSFER MY FARGIN' ITUNES LIBRARY.

Oh, it sees them, I guess, in that they show up in Finder, but I can't actually open/mount them. I've changed workgroup settings, I've set sharing wide open on both sides, I've sprinkled pixie dust* all over the place--nothing. I'm pretty sure this is a Windows issue, since there was a brief shining moment when I could access the Mac shares from the Windows machine. If I had been smart, I would have transferred everything then, but I couldn't figure out where anything was supposed to go on the Mac HD. I dropped one folder into the Mac and then tried to add it to itunes, but never could find it on the Mac's file structure. And now I can't connect to the Mac's shares from the Windows machine anymore either, so it doesn't matter.

I have tried everything google has come up with, I have consulted our resident experts, and it appears that XP Home is part of what's messing with me since it only allows guest access to shares (which...what?!) and it doesn't allow me to edit the local security policy. I have been working on this for over a week and I just want to kill something. It's been a long time since I've felt this clueless sitting in front of a computer. Aren't Macs supposed to be easy?

Grr.

*where " sprinkled pixie dust" = "cursed like a sailor and threw things"

I know this isn't the 'fix' but have you just tried downloading to a USB key and then doing it that way? I use my MBP about 90% of the time now, it is a work computer but is 'mine' to do with as I choose so I use (am using it now) as my new computer. I love it, super duper fast and I've learned quite a bit.

Congrats on your Mac purchase :)

About the only thing I can think of on this one is the aforementioned USB key. If you can't alter the XP home security policy - meh. That's just borked.
Is there an administrator login? Not just user-with-admin-rights, but Administrator? (Go ahead, cuss and say "I did that!") But I'm running low on ideas.

Jason! I haven't heard from you in forever! How've you been, man? :)

If there is a true administrator login on XP Home, I haven't been able to find it. Shame, too, because until I had to try to administer the OS, I didn't find it the least bit objectionable. Sigh.

I haven't tried the USB key, but it sounds like I'm gonna have to. Transferring a 40GB library in 4GB increments will be kind of painful, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, I guess.

If it will help any, I'll be glad to ask if you've finished copying everything over yet every night when I get home from work.. That should make the project just fly by, right?

Are you done yet?

Rob? Um, no. Thanks though!

I went to Best Buy today intending to buy an 8GB USB stick, came out with a 160GB drive instead (it was on clearance!!!). I'm cautiously optimistic that a successful library transfer is within my reach.

Then comes the figuring out how to store all the files in one location and have them still remain accessible to 3 different user libraries on the same machine. Without having to share the same playlists and see all the songs I...er, I mean we, don't care anything about.

Is it too late to go back to cassettes? I used to make a mean mix tape, back in the day.

I've been a quiet lad. Older and wiser.
Never understimate the throughput of a sneakernet. Unfortunately, I have no mac administration skills, other then "Well, it's Unix, so the lovely command line is there..."
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