Well like any good end-user I immediately installed the latest version of OS X without looking for problems others were having. Well my friend at work, Chris Ashworth, pointed out that my install didn’t list Windows shares in the Finder window under “Shares”. I was only seeing Bonjour systems and didn’t have the “All…” item like he had. Being a computer guy I was obligated to waste entirely to much time figuring out such a small problem. I tried all sorts of things like enabling file sharing (which should have zero impact), entering the SMB system through finder using command+k, and staring at the wall for 45 minutes. None of this helped.
Finally today I re-visited my firewall settings in the security preference pane. I, once again like any good user, had immediately turned on the second option blocking all ports except SSH which I had enabled in the sharing preference pane. I tried the first option, allow all traffic, and low and behold a few seconds later the “All…” item had appeared in Finder and clicking it revealed numerous Windows shares. File selection windows also provided access to the Windows shares. Strange right?
Now I’m no security expert, but having to turn off the firewall to browse for Windows shares seems sub-optimal. Of course given the tiff exploit I just posted about here, I’m beginning to wonder if Apple needs to shift their focus back to security a bit. I’m sure someone at Apple knows something about security and testing. Or did Apple spend the security budget on the 200+ patents in the iPhone?
On a side note, I have forgotten how much fun troll baiting (no jokes – too easy) actually is.
Update: Sometimes being sooooo right is a bad thing
1 comment
Mike Walker says:
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 2:34 pm (UTC -5)
Check out: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8519148
Basicly you need to add each windows box as a WINS server and add the workgroup info.
I hope that helps.
Mike