Newsgroup traffic brought to this venue. Newsgroup posts will be somewhat edited, reformatted, etc. As I stated 'over there' trying to answer the inevitiable list of questions and having to try to beat everything into some kind of a formatted mode is just too much of a pain (OE6 under Win-98SE I pretty much had under control, OE6 under XP continues to amaze me with the issues that I can't seem to simply resolve, not that I've spent a lot of time on it) And with the xmas days coming up, there may be others that are going to be struggling with this in a few days. Newgroup threads involved;
[Scgeeks] getting a mac to print on a pc attached printer ... Ellen
[Scgeeks] Back to ground 0 Ellen

Multiple Terminal windows/instances - From the 'Terminal' Tool-bar, File | New Shell
One could then also look under the Terminal Help menu that should have a listing about 'saving terminal screens/options' .... such as giving yourself a (desktop) link that would then open up multiple Terminal windows, each with their own locations, colors, parameters, etc. all at once)

XP and OS-X both require 'logging in' so as to determine what 'rights' the user has to system services, hardware, and file system. Worst case, you might be able to 'login' as a Guest on any or all of these machines, but even if that's allowed, access to most everything should be very restricted. If you really haven't created accounts {with specific priviledges) on these machines, please, please do as soon as possible.

NOTE: there are some major differences between the way XP-Home and XP-Pro handles network shares .... ignored here because only Pro was defined.

Additional NOTE; Having the XP hard drive formatted as NTFS can also include some 'special' issues.

That these machines should be within the same "workgroup' hasn't been ignored here, it's just that this is the first step seen everywhere else in trying to network things together.

You have no idea how much these statements shock and amaze me. Coming from someone that would seemingly be working with all those users with compromised machines, this would seem to be very strange. No firewalls, the whole of Windows C:/ drive available (the Mac doesn't use the C:/ drive designation, but if that drive is also wide-open ...) ... please, in addition to creating actual user accounts, scope down the access to only those folders/files/hardware that actually 'need' to be shared.

Nothing stated here about password/passphrase access either. The computers mentioned thus far should be capable of at least WAP. Please get that invoked with a long/strong passphrase on all systems. Most recent (dlink in this case) routers will also allow a configuration setting to also lock down access by MAC address (not the Mac computer, the MAC ID of the network cards used by the computers)

http://software.canon-europe.com/products/0010100.asp identifies OS-X drivers, so hurdle #1 is not an issue .. however, not stated ... are they installed on both the Windows and OS-X machines?

Lots of things that could be involved here. I'm going to start with the Winodws side of the house. Per Microsoft's own documentation, based on the timing and sequencing of building the data tables for the 'natwork data' .. if things happen at the worst times, it can take something like 20 minutes for a 'newly connected' system to show up in the 'browsemaster' table (flip side, it could happen almost instantaneously)

With the wireless connection involved, there's the little issue of cards, apps 'going to sleep' .... which would then cause the 'network' data to change (again, see the above time line issues involved with this also)

Under either Windows or OS-X, one can 'force' a connection via the IP address directly, say plugging it into a (web)browser address bar, an FTP tool, etc. before the system actually 'appears' under the nirmal 'network' connection tools/applications.

Everything/everyone trying very hard to help protect you. The account/password request is again trying to prevent anyone but you to actually login to the 'other' computer, trying to pin the actual login to a specific user with associated access priviledges to that system.

Use of the word 'alias' indicates that you're tried to make a local icon/link out of a specific connection. On a wired system, probably not a big deal .. use of the wireless connection things makes this a bit tricky/nasty, much as you've already described. If the connection is found/good, not muc of an issue, if the connection is not found/lost, then you run into these 'error messages' .... I personally would not recommend use of an 'alias' link on the laptop, but only you know how you need/use things. (For Windows users, an alias is basically a 'shortcut' ... and the aliasing of a network drive is typically called "mapping a network drive" .... both can cause issues if that particular drive can't be found)

Under Windows, this is data that can be changed under the "Share As:" properties window for the item, in this case, the C:/ drive .... as stated above, the sharing of the whole C:/ drive really is a no-no ....

In reality, your Windows machines should be doing the same thing ... although both should also deny access to the actual 'workgroup/system' from your 'foreign' attempted connection ... but once again, there's that issue of account names, passwords, and priviledges involved. That it is 'seen' would assumedly be due to being on the same side of a/the router, and more than likely within the 'same' IP Address block. Moving one or more of the systems to a different non-routable/private-network range would remove the 'other' system(s) from that list, but would/could also raise some other issues, such as needing to reconfigure the router to allow that 'other' IP address block to actually be allowed to pass data to/from the WAN/ISP.

******No -- I have removed guest accts from both XP laptops

*********Yes they are

OK back to the printer issue -- the stuff I have read after googling seems to be mostly oriented towards creating a pseudo postscript printer and redirecting the output to that pseudo printer. I will take a look at that after Christmas but so far I am mumbling along by just opening the file from the mac HD on the XP laptop and then printing it. This may just be the path of least resistence.

********** The network is behind a hardware firewall.

******** Yes the wifi is running security for login and yes I know what MAC addresses are.

**** Turns out that the macbook accepts any name/pw to be able to see the drives on the XP laptops. Not sure how that is protection but I gave it a name/pw and it accepted them

**** nod re the XP alias; not sure I understand why the mac does that. It seems to occasionally lose the connection to one of the laptops but now will re-establish it if I click network/workgroups/the lost laptop name and then reauthenitucate.

*** Well maybe I will think about changing that altho it is a pita as I need to get at new folders and the laptops are not in the same room ....

*** Didn't exactly follow what you are saying here

Moderator Edit: fixed the quoting

Do you have your XP machines configured to automatically logon at boot? Is that account administrator level?

yes

That means it is likely there is no password for that account (not very secure, which is what Wazoo was saying) and you may not be able to use it for Windows sharing with the Mac (not a Mac person, just know some applications require a password be set).

To figure out the username, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management (or right-click on My Computer, select Manage). System Tools, Local Users and Groups, Users. There is likely one called Administrator or whatever you entered when you forst configured the machine.

You can also figure out your shares (C$ is default administrative share on WinXP, which is why default username/no password is not secure) under Shared Folders in the same System Tools area.

Let me start this post with some of the background philosophy that may not be grasped here.

First of all, answers/responses can only be provided based on the data made known. This is why so many questions tend to get asked in these parts, rather than the much-anticipated "here's your perfect answer right here" .... As more details, facts, and intangibles arrive, the actual/correct answer looms a bit closer.

Secondly, as hinted at in the initial post, replies made here are not always directly pointed to the Topic starter. There is the attempt to make sure that certain things can be picked up by someone finding the Topic via a search a few months down the road.

For most users, the fact that the network is "behind a hardware firewall" might be sufficient. However, what's not mentioned is that in all likelihood, the wireless router is setting "behind the hardware firewall" also, which means that there is an access point "inside" the 'local' network. This is the hard-wired network equivalent of allowing a laptop to be brought into the corporate office and allowed to plug-in to that local network, again, the issue being that this connection is now on the wrong side of the firewall (as far as security/protection of the corporate LAN goes)

"Guest account" .... some possible/probable confusion available here. There is a specific "Guest account" that is an 'assigned' user. However, there is also "guest/anonymous" access to (shared) network/system/file hardware and data. Under Windows XP, there's also the "Simple File Sharing" configuration bit that comes into play (XP-Home uses this exclusively, XP-Pro offers it as an option) To make things really interesting, targetted against the comment "I have removed guest accts from both XP laptops" .. there's this interesting sentence;
Note also that the settings in the user manager in the control panel have nothing to do with networking. Disabling the Guest account there only has the effect that nobody can log on locally (at the keyboard). It does not have any effect on network access.
So there is yet a question about the terms "removed" and "disabled" here ...????

Further confusion offered when looking at or setting Local Security Policies under Win-XP . you'll find a nice entry;
"Access this Computer from the network" .. which includes those favorite folks "Everyone" ....
(Before getting excited and deleting things, see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823659 )

"Authentication" .... a setting that might be usable with certain network configurations. Another interesting sentence or two;
Disable 802.1X authentication altogether, unless you have the 802.1X infrastructure, typically involving a Radius server or similar, and can actually use IEEE 802.1X authentication.

In that case, leave it selected, but also select "Authenticate as guest when user or computer information is unavailable". This will enable you to access files and printers on other computers on which you have no user account, including Windows 9x or ME computers.
Microsoft documents tend to state factoids like "logged out every 3 minutes" as a symptom of this setting being 'wrong' for your network.

"oriented towards creating a pseudo postscript printer and redirecting the output to that pseudo printer" .... several things involved there actually. So many printers have been sold that have moved their actual processing of page data over to the (Windows) driver. (Exactly the same issue as seen with Win-Modems, which don't work unless Windows is running) This is why so many of them don't actually work (or have all advertised features available) when plugged directly into a Mac. Most 'Windows capable' printers don't understand Postscript, which is basically a page-layout application/programming language unto its own. The described psuedo-stuff basically turns the desired page output into a huge graphic image, which is then dumped to the (braind-dead Windows-capable) printers as a graphic image. Asked and not answered, have the Mac drivers been installed on the Mac?

"Samba" .. interesting news just recently reported. Microsoft lost their appeal and is now required to actually get around to releasing their "networking" code to the Samba developers (and assumedly others) such that Samba can now be brought into spec, as compared to the thus-far reverse-engineering attempts to make it work. One would expect that in the near future, updates to Samba codebase will resolve a number of the existing *NIX/Windows networking issues (which includes the Mac)

Trying to sort out whether I need to generate some sort of question list on various configuration settings, ask what 'guide' may have been used to configure the various computers, or continue with this pointing out of all sorts of involved bits ....???? My issue is that my network is so tightened down, I can't duplicate your 'ease' of connecting to other computers. I don't use the same account name on any two computers, passwords are not the same, and any shared assets are also passworded. (And yes, this leads to a lot of PITA moments! It took a client's tower with a wireless PCI card installed three days to actually find and link up to one of my wireless routers setting not more than three feet away, though it saw and could talk to at least two of the other neighborhood wireles routers at power-up) However, in my case, there are five other wireless routers in the area (three with the SSID of LinkSys, two with DLink) I'm not willing to accidentally allow any of those folks to stumble into my realm.