Connecting a Mac and Win XP PC via RCD or CoRD

Do you have security software or firewall running on the XP machine?  You may  need to create an exception for the Windows Remote Desktop protocols.  Also, in the Windows Firewall, you need to make sure that the checkbox "Do not allow exceptions" is NOT checked.

I presume you have actually turned on Remote Desktop (which is only available on Win XP Pro - you didn't say which version of XP you have).  Open the System control panel and look at the Remote tab.

Do you have basic network connectivity between the machines?  On the mac, open a Terminal window and type

ping <IP address of XP machine>

(you can also do this in a CMD / DOS window on XP)

Dear
             xp     Ip machine   192.168.1.33  like that
                mask address   255.255.255.0
                Gate way          192.168.1.1     like that
                           DNS        192.168.1.2    LIKE THAT
                         ADNS        192.168.1.3

i have xp pro, and my windows firewall is turned off. i run zone alarm security for anti virus, firewall, etc. i have not configured its firewall. Yes, i have turned on remote desktop. i don't know if i have basic network connectivity; i assumed that if both the mac and the xp were connected to the same router, they would be able to connect to each other. i opened up the terminal app on the mac and ping the ip address of the xp pro pc. the results are:

64 bytes from 98.116.131.161: icmp_seq=162 ttl=63 time=3.367 ms

this is one line of many; it repeats infinitely.

thanks for your help.

Something is out of whack on your network. 98.116.131.161 is a routable internet address. Your computers should have local private IP addresses in one of the following ranges:

10.0.0.0 through 10.255.255.255
 172.16.0.0 through 172.31.255.255
 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255

I suspect your Verizon Fios is not doing network address translation, but is connecting directly to the internet.

What you really need is an Airport Extreme, not an Airport Express. The Extreme should be connected to the FiOS, and the PC connected to one of the Extreme's ethernet ports. Then both the PC and the Mac will get IP addresses in the 10.x.x.x range and you will be able to do RDP.

Is it too late to exchange the Express for an Extreme?

the ip address that i pinged is the one from my xp pro pc. i googled "what is my ip" and that's what i got. i can always purchase an airport extreme if i have to, but let me ask you another question. perhaps the extreme help me resolve another problem: i would like to purchase an NAS type storage device that i could plug into my routers and access from both my pc and mac, to back up files and to store my audio files, which i would play from either computer. RAID capability is not a priority (although perhaps it should be) so i was thinking of a Seagate or Lacie device that can be accessed by both the PC and Mac. any opinions? thanks again.

The "what is my IP address" is probably giving you your external IP address, not the IP address on your LAN.

on your xp machine, in a CMD window, type

ipconfig

You should see a list of network interfaces, probably only one, with different IP Address info.  It should be either 10.xxx.yyy.zzz or 192.168.yyy.zzz (or possibly 172.xxx.yyy.zzz) as strung suggests.  This is what mine looks like

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 3:

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : localdomain
        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.211.55.4
        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.211.55.1


Use that IP address when connecting via CoRD from your Mac.

i will try that, et01267. any other opinions from anybody on the airport extreme and an nas device?

i will post this data tonite and we'll see what happens. also, since we're on the same topic, and assuming the above works, how can i connect two printers to both the new "pc and mac network" so that they are both usable by both the pc and mac.  i have one hp non-networked printer connected directly to the pc via cable, and one hp connected wirelessly to the mac. thanks.

Printer sharing should work. See the tutorials here:  http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/windowsxp.html

Printer sharing will work best if you install Bonjour for Windows on the PC:  

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL999

Dealing with printers in a mixed Mac / PC network can be a can of worms, depending on how things are configured on your network.

Your HP printer connected wirelessly should continue to work from the Mac, but this may depend on how you set it up originally.  And the PC should find it as well.

The cable-connected printer should be shared from the PC, and the Mac might be able to find it; MacOS 10.5 doesn't do this as well as 10.6, but you can make it work.

However, if you have problems with printing you should start a new question in the appropriate areas.

Let's get your basic networking issues sorted out here first.

ok, i followed all the comments and i was able to connect via rdc and cord. my ip address was incorrect, as noted, and i had to turn off my Zone Alarm (ZA) firewall. to complete the question, how do i configure ZA so that the firewall is working but allows access to my mac via rdc or cord? also, it seems that i should post my printer sharing problem as a separate question. any comments on these issues are appreciated. thanks to all.

If you want to use Microsoft Terminal Server (aka Remote Desktop Protocol or RDP) through a firewall, you need to open TCP port 3389.

how do i "open" a port? i am a newbie to all this, so thanks for your patience.

You read the documentation that comes with zonealarm.

By default, most firewalls block all incoming network connections.  Network connections (whether incoming or outgoing) are distinguished by (amongst other thing) the port they connect to; for example, HTTP connections use port 80 by default.

If you want to allow certain network protocols to connect to your machine through a firewall, you need to open the port that it uses.  The port for RDP is 3389 (by default) as strung has noted.  There should be a fairly obvious menu or panel on ZA where you can "open a port" or "make an exception" (which is the same thing).  

i was able to connect via rdc and cord if i changed a setting within zone alarm. i lowered the "internet zone security" and the "trusted zone security" levels from high to medium. I use ZA security suite 9.3; does anyone know how to configure it so that only one port is open, as recommended in several expert comments?

thanks strung!