I hope this is the right forum for this question. If not, please let me know.
Anyway, I work for a small company and recently saw the light and bought an iMac for work (24" iMac, 10.5.6, Intel 2.8 ghz, 2MB RAM). I love it, with one serious exception. The way the Windows machines and the Mac see shared file locations is giving me trouble, primarily as it pertains to linked file locations in Excel (Office 2008 for Mac). All of the files are on a server named \\cdi\user\, which is mapped as I:\ on the Windows network. The Mac sees this location as "user:".
We have several Excel workbooks that link to one another, some in different folders, but all on the same network. Once I set up the links in one of the workbooks on the Mac (user:spreads:filename), everything works great until one of the Windows machines opens and saves the file. The Win machine sees the file locations as saved by the Mac, but it apparently saves the link as the mapped letter drive (I:\spreads\filename). After this, the Mac doesn't recognize the file location anymore, and I have to reset all the links again back to "user:spreads:filename". Finder always sees the files under the user: location, so I know it knows where they are. It just doesn't like that mapped drive I guess.
Is there any way to make the Mac understand this mapped drive on a Windows environment? I would be grateful for any help.
I'm sure you already figured out that I am not a professional network admin. We don't have one. I am not a complete idiot, but I pay someone to help me with these issues and to do web related stuff for me. He is working on the issue, but he is used to Win networks (though he is the one who turned me on to the Mac). In other words, please dumb down your answers as much as possible so I can understand.
I have tried a couple of things. One is saving the links from a Win machine as \\cdi\user\spreads\filename instead of using the mapped I:\ drive. The Win machine was happy, but the Mac could not link to this location, although it did seem to recognize that the location existed. When I say this, I mean Excel didn't autoupdate the link, but it also didn't reset the link to a MacintoshHD location like it normally does when it doesn't see the mapped drive. The link shows up as "@cdi:user:".
I also installed MS Excel on a Fusion partition running XP and it also could not see the linked file locations after a Win machine saved the workbook, which told me it was a Mac OSX issue, rather than an Excel for Mac issue.
Again, thanks for any help.
Anyway, I work for a small company and recently saw the light and bought an iMac for work (24" iMac, 10.5.6, Intel 2.8 ghz, 2MB RAM). I love it, with one serious exception. The way the Windows machines and the Mac see shared file locations is giving me trouble, primarily as it pertains to linked file locations in Excel (Office 2008 for Mac). All of the files are on a server named \\cdi\user\, which is mapped as I:\ on the Windows network. The Mac sees this location as "user:".
We have several Excel workbooks that link to one another, some in different folders, but all on the same network. Once I set up the links in one of the workbooks on the Mac (user:spreads:filename), everything works great until one of the Windows machines opens and saves the file. The Win machine sees the file locations as saved by the Mac, but it apparently saves the link as the mapped letter drive (I:\spreads\filename). After this, the Mac doesn't recognize the file location anymore, and I have to reset all the links again back to "user:spreads:filename". Finder always sees the files under the user: location, so I know it knows where they are. It just doesn't like that mapped drive I guess.
Is there any way to make the Mac understand this mapped drive on a Windows environment? I would be grateful for any help.
I'm sure you already figured out that I am not a professional network admin. We don't have one. I am not a complete idiot, but I pay someone to help me with these issues and to do web related stuff for me. He is working on the issue, but he is used to Win networks (though he is the one who turned me on to the Mac). In other words, please dumb down your answers as much as possible so I can understand.
I have tried a couple of things. One is saving the links from a Win machine as \\cdi\user\spreads\filename instead of using the mapped I:\ drive. The Win machine was happy, but the Mac could not link to this location, although it did seem to recognize that the location existed. When I say this, I mean Excel didn't autoupdate the link, but it also didn't reset the link to a MacintoshHD location like it normally does when it doesn't see the mapped drive. The link shows up as "@cdi:user:".
I also installed MS Excel on a Fusion partition running XP and it also could not see the linked file locations after a Win machine saved the workbook, which told me it was a Mac OSX issue, rather than an Excel for Mac issue.
Again, thanks for any help.
