Getting my computer name to work as web address in guest OS

I'm running Windows XP SP3 on Parallels 4.0.3844 on OSX Leopard.

Under OSX Preferences -> Sharing, I've assigned a computer name of 'thesheep.local'

I have a bunch of local sites set up to use this, so that on my local machine I use that in the URL - e.g. http://thesheep.local/site1/

According to OSX I should be able to access the site like this from any machine on my local network. However, within Windows on Parallels the address doesn't work.

 

The thing is that this address is neither present in dns, nor Mac responds on WINS-requests

The easiest way to allow to connect to Mac's http://thesheep.local/site1/ is to create an entry for it in c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

If you are using Shared Networking, open it in notepad and add next string to the end of file
10.211.55.2 thesheep.local

 

Thanks for your message Elric.

I tried that but the IP 10.211.55.2 (in the subnet?) doesn't seem to work for me. I have Shared Networking with DHCP enabled.

However, as long as I determine the IP for the host computer (like 192.168.0.2) then I can do what you suggest using that in the hosts file.

I guess the only drawback with that for me is if I want to work when not connected to the internet/a router, or if I'm connected to a different router from normal and the IP changes.

 

there is a tremendeous amount of various details, but generally 10.211.55.2. should work.. providing next assumptions:

ifconfig (typed in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal) displays that some of the interfaces (likely en2 or en3) has address 10.211.55.2 (if it doesn't, it is a separate issue - so far it is known that sometimes this interface is disabled by third-party program)

ping 10.211.55.2 (at Windows side) works,

you could try also to open http://10.211.55.2 from Safari at Mac Side, if it opens success, then most likely it will from Windows side..