Any Mac and PC networking gurus out there?

[Lionheart]

I can't get my wife's new MacBook Pro to network on my home wireless network. The Mac picks up the network, can access the web, but can't find the pc's on the network nor can it find the network printer (this is probably more important than finding and communicating to the windblows machines on the network). I've tried configuring the printer manually on the mac using the printers IP address, but it still can't detect the printer. I've used the mac installation files for my printer to add the printer to the mac, but it can't find it scanning for it on tcp/ip. Is there something I need to do? I've tried to install thursby Dave, but it can't find any networks or servers(there aren't any). Everything is connected wirelessly to a Netgear rangemax router, and the printer is connected to the router with a network printer. My son's desktop and my laptop can find each other and the printer on the network, but not my main desktop. My main desktop can see the network printer and can occasionally find the other pc's on the network. The mac can't find anything except the network. I've tried setting everything to auto detect to manually configured IP/DNS settings. Nothing works.

[Sebastian]

If it was Win2K it'd be simple, but XP is stupid about its sharing, you have to jump through some hoops. Wish I could help you more than that, but a year on XP made me go back to Win2K, and that was the last Windows version I used.

Have you tried this site?

http://www.macosxhints.com

[Lionheart]

Thanks for the link Seb. I'll spend the rest of the evening after my kids are asleep browsing that site. I wonder if I would have these problems on an all Mac network? I've always had these problems with PC's and this is the third router I've tried.
Again, thanks for the link.
Leon

[Sebastian]

Yeah, it would probably be easier. One tip, when sharing from the macs, there is one folder in each user's home folder named "public." This is the only folder outside computers can access. This is done by design to reduce security risks. There are ways around that so you can share other folders or even entire drives. Just an FYI.

[SmartWombat]

Same for WinXP but it's called SharedDocs and is for the whole machine open to all users

[Peter_AUS]

You have to share the resources in Windows to get it to show up on the Network. You setup the printer and browse the network to get to the printer to be able to set it up from the mac or any other machine on the network.

[Lionheart]

I've done that. The reason I moved the printer off the main desktop and onto a print server was that the other pc's weren't able to consistently print to the shared printer when they couldn't find the main desktop on the network. I also did it so the Mac could find it on the network, but the mac doesn't seem to be able to navigate the network, and none of the other pc's can even find my main desktop pc on the network 90% of the time. I'm thinking I might have to re-format and re-install windblows on my main desktop and see if a clean install allows it communicate better to the network.

[Peter_AUS]

Does the print server have an IP address, maybe you need to put that in the network DNS (just reaching out on a limb with that one). I haven't had anything to do with setting up macs at all.