WINXP name resolution for HTTP from OSX (Safari or Firefox)

I am a UI web developer (CSS/XHTML) for a media sharing service. I use Parallels to emulate our development and hosting environment, and am able to test our service using all the major browsers of today... Safari, FF 1.5 - 2.0 (OSX and Windows), IE6 and IE7... on a stand alone machine MacBook Pro... something I was unable to do with a lone Windows box (and please, don't reply with anything about SWIFT.ORG... the webkit rendering engine for CSS/XHTML and JavaScript just isn't ready yet... although I applaud the concept if they continue to build it).

So far, I've been tweaking my development environment to hit my WINXP Paralles by IP address (from OSX and Windows)... which has worked great!

However, because I move around and work in multiple offices and Internet cafes, this always requires me to sit down for about 10 min and reconfigure an number of config files, shared drives, etc.. to use the new DHCP IP address for the WINXP virtual on Parallels (which is a drag).

I've been testing with a method, which is to hit my WINXP Parallels by machine name (i.e. WINXP). This works great on the from the Windows side, and I'm able to map an administrative share (C$) to the WINXP virtual from the finder using:

smb://winxp/c$

this way I can dev from Dreamweaver on my MacBook.

However... I'm having a problem hitting my WINXP virtual through HTTP ?!?

I've exhausted a number of system settings both on the OSX and WINXP side (disabling the firewall, opeing up port 80, host header files, etc.), but I'm unable resolve the WINXP machine name through HTTP! My understanding is that this works through SMB because of Rondevu. I tried mucking around with the Directory Access app in the Utilities folder... however, because we don't have a WINS server, I don't believe that would work.

Do you have any idea how I can get this to work? It's the only thing stopping me from setting up and working with a really great development environment, and saving loads of time.

Is there some kind of host lookup file within OSX which I can specify a Windows machine name and associate that with an IP (that way, it would be only one config change whenever my IP changes)?

Any help or ideas would be welcome.

 

After a bit of reading in the forums... one thing I'm going to try out now is...

1. Changing my Parallel Network Adapter to Shared Networking; Virtual Network Adapter... which was suggested as the best method for the new 1970 build which I have installed

2. Statically assigning the TCP/IP properties for my Local Area Connection (Parallels Network Adapter) to the following (which I got after doing and ipconfig /all):

IP: 10.211.55.3
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 10.211.55.1
DNS: 10.211.55.1

3. Then reconfiguring my development environment to that static IP. This is pretty much the option I was doing before attempting to use the environment I described above... Windows machine name resolution (which uses NetBIOS or WINS... I'm not sure which). Regardless, it's working now.

As I already know... this environment works fine. I can hit my Parallels local IIS by IP from Windows browsers (IE6, IE7, and Firefox) along with OSX browsers (i.e. Safari, Firefox)

Since the IP is statically assigned, it won't change and I won't have to tweak my dev environment each time I get on a new wireless network.

However, the assumptions I'm making here are that...

A. With Parallels networking set to Shared Networking; Virtual Network Adapter... when I get on a new wireless network, the DHCP address my Airport gets will still allow my Parallel Windows, with the statically assigned IP, to get online.

B. Still hoping that my EVDO Express Card... which is suppored by the new Intel MacBook Pro... will allow Internet Sharing from Parallels Windows which I had working at one time after tweaking with the Internet Sharing in OSX System Preferences.

I can't test all this now... but tonight when I get to an Internet cafe, I'll let you know if everything works as I hope.

Cross your fingers!

 

I guess I'm answering my own questions here, love when that happens. So from my last post above, I said I would let you know how it went....

super smooth man... randy baby yeah (with my best Austin Powers accent

Both my assumptions A. and B. above were correct. So with my Parallels WINXP VM networking set to Shared Networking; Virtual Adapter and the WINXP TCP/IP set statically... I can hit my WINXP VM from OSX browsers by IP and the WINXP VM can ping the outside world using both WI-FI and/or an EVDO ExpressCard (for EVDO, I also turned the Airport off... which also saves on power... WORD).

For more info on using the EVDO ExpressCard on the MacBook Pro, there another thread in this forum that has more people wtih good input on the same thing I figured out...

http://forum.parallels.com/thread5540.html