# Heterogeneous extranet woes

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heterogeneous-extranet-woes/389241>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 24, 2007, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heterogeneous-extranet-woes/389241 "2007-01-24T14:51:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heterogeneous-extranet-woes/389241/1 "2007-01-24T14:51:03Z")

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My brother-in-law is having an issue with his office network. He has a mac laptop with OS X 10.4, I believe, and he wants to be able file share with his secretary’s WinXP machine (again, I am guessing that it’s running WinXP). From within his office LAN, he is able to do this, but he is not able to do so from home. A guy he hired was unable to sort out the problem after several hours of trying. I have a CS degree, but that doesn’t mean I know much about networking. Any thoughts?

Thanks for your help,  
Rob

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/heterogeneous-extranet-woes/389241/2 "2007-01-24T15:29:14Z")

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This looks like it might be a very similar scenario as is already being discussed here:

> **[Remote file management XP & OS X](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=405339)**
>
> I’m a bit of a moron when it comes to understanding networks, so please be patient with me. I have a Macintosh MacBook Pro laptop running OS X v10.4.8. My home desktop is a PC running Windows XP Media Center. Here’s what I want to do: As the Mac is...