Follow the guidelines provided in this article to access shared folders on a Mac OS X system from a Windows system.

New Technology LAN Manager version 2 (NTLMv2).

For a Windows system to be able to access a Mac OS X system’s shared folders, the system must use NTLMv2 only and must also log in as the "Mac System name \ user" , Example: DCMACBOOK\dell.

How to connect the systems.

You can make a successful Windows to MAC file sharing session using the following steps:

1. Setting up sharing on the target system (MAC): (See Figure 1)

Figure 1 MAC File Sharing

2. If you attempt to connect without changing the default settings in NTLM you will get errors like the one below. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 2 Multiple NTLM Errors

3. To change the security level in NTLM, complete the following steps on the Windows system. Go to Group Policy Editor or run gpedit.msc. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3. Changing Security level on NTLM completer

4. LAN Manager authentication level by default it is NTLMv1, it needs to be changed to NTLMv2 to access Mac File Sharing: (See Figure 4.)

Figure 4. Network Security LAN Manager authentication level

Default LAN Manager Setting NTLMv1 (See figure 5.)

Figure 5. Select NTLMv2 response only

Change LAN Manager Settings to NTLMv2 response only

5. Once the LAN Manager authentication level is changed to NTLMv2 you can access Mac File Sharing: (See Figure 6)

Figure 6 Accessing MAC file sharing

6. This last image shows the user browsing files on the Mac OS X system through Windows Explorer. (See Figure 7.)

Figure 7. Accessing MAC files in Windows Explorer