PCs are made to be interoperable, meaning to be able to share the files and network among Macs and Windows PCs with ease. However, issues can still occur from the network, networking technique or problems with OS.

Facts

• Macintosh OS X can automatically identify and read from networked hard drives shared by the Windows OS. In certain situations, you might not be able to write those drives from a Macintosh. Windows PCs can read and write to shared Macintosh drives if shared from either SMB or FTP; drives shared through AFP are generally not available to Windows PCs.

Bonjour Autoconfigure

• Bonjour is an automatic protocol enabling networked PCs to promote services make available to other PCs. 2 PCs running Bonjour should automatically appear as available on each other's network applications.

Resolving Network Issues

• If PCs are not visible to each other, go to the Internet preferences on every PC to decide its IP address. This is placed in System Preferences under Network on Mac operating system X, and Network under Properties on Vista. You might be able to connect the PCs by telling one to open the IP address of the other.

Reverse Direction

• An simple technique to fix this issue is to try doing the same thing in the opposite path if Windows drive does not appear on Mac, try sharing the Mac drive and launching on Windows.

Try the Internet or "SneakerNet"

• Most local network issue can be fixed using the Internet to send files, or by manually transferring a USB drive from 1 PC to another PC. Network applications like DropBox offer a simple technique for 2 PCs to share files.