Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[shastasheen]

Would this work out alright?  It is likely that I will get an Apple laptop in the near future, and the one thing that I would really miss is this program.

Also, if I have an extensive mp3 library on a secondary harddrive formatted with NTFS, would I have to somehow transfer them elsewhere and remformat the drive to work with the mac if I wanted to use it as an external drive?  I couldn't just connect it to the other computer and have it work, right?

[Wobbley]

Assuming you're running Windows on your current PC, then you'd be able to download the Remote Desktop software from Microsoft onto the Mac, and make sure the Remote Desktop client was installed on the Windows PC (also downloadable from MS if you don't already have it - WinXp Already has it installed, you may have to turn it on).  Then you can control the Windows machine from the Mac (wired or wireless).  I do this now in my current setup.

Wobbley

[shastasheen]

Excellent!

Thanks for replying.  My PC is running XP Professional, but I've never experimented with the remote desktop stuff, and certainly didn't know that Macs could run it.

When I get the Powerbook, I plan to network everything wirelessly, and that would be all the control that I needed as long as I could do everything that I would normally do on the PC with Media Center.

[Wobbley]

Yeah, I run WinXp and my roommate has an iBook.  he downloaded the Remote Desktop Client software from the MS site (it's not actually an installable app, or doesn't appear to be, rather it's a self-contained app that runs on the Mac).  He runs the airport card on the iBook through my Netgear RP114 802.11b gateway/router/print server and we use his laptop to control my PC (via Remote Desktop) and play songs through the stereo system (via RCA cable running from WinXp machine to stereo - will go wireless when MC supports PrismIQ or the like).  It took us about 5 minutes to set it up, so you should have no prolems at all.  Search the MS site for Remote Dekstop Client (not the Web one), then dig around the main pages for a link to the Client for Macs.

Wobbley

[i-_cannot-_login]

JUST A MINUTE !!!!!!!!!!

What you are saying right now is:
Use a MAC and at the same time use MC and your music who are on your Windows computer ?

[Wobbley]

Uh, yeah, that's what I am saying.  The Remote Desktop client for the Mac is a self-contained app, so when you download it from MS website and "install" it, it doesn't actually install anything, it just unpacks the files to a directory on the Mac.  You open the app, enter the IP address of the PC you're trying to connect to, then, just like PC Anywhere and Radmin, you see the connected PC's screen on the Mac screen.  The Remote Desktop Client uses the TCP protocol, so it's just sending the data from the PC over the netwrok via TCP just like anything else.  You can even play the music on the Mac, even though it resides on the Win PC.  It's all in the settings you choose before connecting to the PC.  Understand, you're not running MC onthe Mac, you're simply viewing what's on the screen of the PC you're connected to, and are able to interact, through the Mac's screen and mouse/keyboard, with the PC as if you were sitting in front of the PC.  This, by the way, works anywhere.  You don't have to be on the same network, or in the same building, or in the same country for that matter.  In fact, my roommate's sitting at the desk behind me, using his iBook, controlling my WinXP PC that's at my house, which is 30 minutes from here, making a playlist in Media Center for our party this weekend.

Wobbley

[shastasheen]

That all makes good sense.

What about my harddrive question, though?  I know that I could just transfer music to the mac over the network, but is it possible to physically connect it to an external harddrive that had previously been used by a windows machine and formatted with a windows file system?

I don't really know anything about mac file systems, and I don't suspect that this is possible, but it would be nice and save a lot of trouble.  With OSX, there are no longer problems with very short file naming restrictions, are there?  All of my songs are named as "Artist - Album - Track - Song Title," and sometimes that can get to be extremely long...

[Wobbley]

You cannot phycially connect the harddrive that is formatted NTFS to a Mac because Macs use the HFS(+) format and will not recognize the drive.  But, you could, as I think you mentioned, network the drive by networking the Mac and the PC.

HTH,

Wobbley

[bspachman]

That all makes good sense.

What about my harddrive question, though?  I know that I could just transfer music to the mac over the network, but is it possible to physically connect it to an external harddrive that had previously been used by a windows machine and formatted with a windows file system?

The problem is that your Windows HD is formatted with NTFS. Macintoshes can deal with FAT & FAT32 partitions, but Microsoft has never published the NTFS specifications. There are 2 possibilities for you:

1) Boot up your iBook in FireWire Target disc mode. Then connected it to your Window's FireWire port. You may be able to drag & drop.

2) Try the sourceforge project for OSX that is an NTFS filesystem interpreter. It has read-only access. Search versionTracker for a link.

Good luck!
Brad