Can't connect Windows PC to home network with two Mac's

I have a wireless router with highspeed. My Mac OS X wireless laptop and wired Mac OS X computer are connected through the router and sharing files just fine. I just got a wireless Windows XP laptop and all three can connect to the internet. However, the Windows can not see any options to connect to or share with either Mac computer, and they can't see it. Trying to map a network drive from Windows, all that shows is it's own folders to be shared. I set the virus protection software on the Windows to fully trust the other two IP addresses showing on the network, the Mac's.
On the wired Mac I set it to use TCP for sharing, I assume windows uses TCP/IP, for this setting on the Mac it says (will not be encrypted). However in the similar options on the windows computer it has options set to encrypt, didn't get to experimenting with that yet.

What are some common problems/reasons they may not be communicating cross-platform, I read elsewhere it should be fairly easy. I had turned Airport? on while trying new settings. Much more of a Windows user, so this may be a beginner Mac mistake. What all other information would be helpful? None of these computers are the spec from profile.

 

I've been trying to work with the wired Mac computer and the wireless Windows computer, since I want to make sure they are communicating through the router.

The two mac's were the start of this home network, they are running fine so I do not want to mess that up. The windows pc has multiple previous network connection setups already done from previous networks with other windows computers. I have tried connecting the mac to the existing network setup that it seems to be "on." I created a new network place and tried to connect the mac to it. Also, I did the wireless home network wizard, this didn't seem to do much, pretty much said "the other computers will need this computers information," although I made a new workgroup that it seems to be looking for or on. I tried to connect the mac's to all combinations of the workgroup, ip, computer name, shared folder name, full shared folder path (optimaly want to share a Drive from the wired mac, and folder from the wireless mac, and a folder from the windows pc) - by entering smb://ip#xxxxxxxx/all the options, and tcp://xxxxx/xxxxx into the Mac's "Go>Connect to Folder and Connect to Server". I got some (-36) error. I would think that I could set up the windows computer as a server for the mac to connect to via wired(which is isnt) home network wizard, the wireless network wizard does not seem to set it up as a real server. Comming from the windows computer there are no signs of other computers on the network except in the Norton AntiVirus program it shows the computers as "new computer" with its ip and no options or much other info.

Additional information:
The Mac wired computer is Macintosh OS X 10.5.5 (I have been using information for Mac OS X 10.4, which is all I have gotten off the internet, from apple.com, etc.) The most perplexing problem I ran into is that many help guides first step is to enable "Windows Sharing" on the Mac from the Sharing options under system preferences, either on first page or clicking Services. There is no Windows Sharing option or services button, nor Windows Sharing under options or edit. I have tried turning on, activating share settings in - airport, on the wired computer even; appletalk; shared files that it can see on the other mac and that it is sharing.
The Windows computer is XP media center edition, SP 3.
The router is from Comcast - NETGEAR 54Mbps wireless router WGR614v8

Including any newb-to-mac suggestions u think I may have missed, how do i make sure what Workgroup the mac is using? Can a PC, and can a Mac, have 2 simultanious network connections with different workgroups(as I don't want to disturb the existing connection between the 2 mac's). Should I delete/erase/reset all existing network data on all computers :S ?
What other ways are there of finding/connecting/setting up this network connection that I havnt mentioned... more importantly whats the way it should be done (optimaly all 3 computers on this network (again, 2 Mac's 1 PC) should be ad-hoc, equal clients, or if needed, the Wired Mac should be the server, I could see it working if I erased/reset all the network settings and made new with the windows being a server but thats not what I want, is there a way to do what I want.

Thank you for any help! and please let me know what other information could be helpful.

 

Hi,

I have the same problem... kinda. I've been trying to connect my wired Mac to a wireless PC running Vista, but so far i have not been successful. I was able, however, to connect my Mac to a wired PC also running Vista with no problems. I played with the sharing properties of the folder i wanted to share on the PC, then on the Mac i just typed the smb://"PC computer name" and it worked instantly.
My problem is connecting that same wired Mac to a wireless PC. I replicated the sharing properties on both PCs, but i'm guessing that because one is wired and the other is wireless, the connection to the latter one was not successful.
Any advice would be very appreciated. Thanks!

 

You should be able to mount the PC's shares on the Mac as

smb://Name/ShareName or smb://IP/ShareName if something didn't work right.

If you enable Windows File Sharing in System Preferences -> Sharing, you can follow its instructions to access your Mac's shares on your PC.

Not sure if anyone still cares, this thread is kinda old.

 

thanks for the info, but i still can't get my wired mac to connect to the wireless pc. They're both on the same network, i've enabled sharing on both, and still the mac can't even see it on the network map. Needless to say, using the SMB protocol with computer name or with IP doesn't work either