The file sharing dialog has confused me in each model of macOS I’ve used thus far (Mojave, Ventura, Sonoma…) and I wish to perceive the state of affairs as soon as and for all.
In superior sharing settings there’s a idea known as “Home windows File Sharing” or “Home windows sharing” that, for some cause, seems to be handled individually from merely “SMB sharing”.
Questions
- By “Home windows sharing”, is macOS referring to one thing distinct from SMB sharing? I’d’ve thought that the 2 phrases are typically used synonymously. In different phrases I suppose I am asking “In macOS, does SMB sharing with out Home windows sharing imply: SMB sharing with different Macs solely“? I discover it tough to inform.
- Can no variations of Home windows entry shares until “Home windows sharing” is enabled? I’ve tried with a reasonably up-to-date Home windows 10, and it definitely couldn’t. I feel it is protected to say that Home windows 10 ought to have an up-to-date model of SMB accessible to it, so what may Home windows’ SMB consumer presumably be lacking?
- MacOS’s superior sharing settings point out that some Home windows techniques cannot entry the shares with out “Home windows sharing” enabled, however this assertion may be very imprecise. Does this imply that some Home windows techniques can entry the shares underneath sure circumstances? Which circumstances are these? I think about it needs to be attainable to finish the sentence “To entry macOS SMB shares with out enabling Home windows sharing, the next SMB options have to be supported by the consumer: ______” I’ve come throughout no such checklist of options, which appears to me to be absolutely the minimal wanted to grasp whether or not a sure SMB consumer ought to be capable of entry macOS SMB shares.
With out realizing this it is not possible to find out whether or not any specific SMB consumer is unable to entry the shares due to an issue (and subsequently require troubleshooting) or whether or not it is unable to take action by design. If attainable I would definitely like my Home windows techniques to make use of the safer password dealing with methodology whose existence is usually recommended by macOS’s wording.
Background
I’ve many SMB purchasers that I at present do not know what to anticipate from. For instance:
- Debian 13
- Ubuntu 24.10 (identical consumer as Debian most probably)
- Home windows 10
- App-integrated SMB consumer libraries (like Kodi 21, and a few iOS apps)
None of them seems to work. Ought to any of them work? I do not know.
Compound this with that I can entry macOS SMB shares from different macOS techniques, and it is clear that the shares work — simply not for anybody else.
Simply neglect about it
Why not simply allow “Home windows sharing” and neglect about it? As a result of, in response to me…
- I nonetheless would not perceive the state of affairs, which I need to do. It suggests an uncomfortable hole in my information that I wish to fill.
- It provides me the impression that my non-macOS SMB purchasers are configured to be needlessly insecure. This means that they won’t be configured correctly, interval.
- If storing passwords “much less securely” will not be a noteworthy element, then absolutely Apple would not have bothered to litter their UI with the observe. Subsequently I mustn’t assume it.
My information degree is: “Not an SMB professional” — I’ve at most enabled some vfs modules in Linux Samba configurations (e.g. to permit TimeMachine to make use of shares as targets, and permit iOS to repeat recordsdata to a share). I am not acquainted with its deeper intricacies.
