"Arlen Holder" wrote in message
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If you want similar read/write access to the entire file system over WiFi,
you only need to add any free FTP server and then, on Windows, you just go
to the network neighborhood and enter in the URI, e.g.,
ftp://192.168.1.2:2121
This will ask for your login & password (if you've set one up in FTP) and
then you will see the entire visible file system, read/write (if you set
that up in FTP) to Windows, over the Wi-Fi LAN.

Does anyone know of Android software that makes a phone act as a true SMB
client or server, so

1) Android can access \\Windows-PC\share\folder\filename exactly as if it
were local card/phone storage - Android SMB client

2) a folder on Android can be shared so a Windows PC can access it as
\\Android\sharename\folder\filename - Android SMB server

I've come across apps like AndSMB which allow Android to see an SMB server
and allow you to navigate the shared tree structure, but then you must
transfer a *copy* of the file to local Android storage, modify it and then
transfer it back again - like using FTP, not with true file *access* where
(in Unix terms) you mount remote storage to look like an extension to local
storage, or (in Windows terms) the remote storage looks like an additional
drive letter, with files being read/written as if to local storage.

Is there some fundamental design problem with making this happen on Android.
I can imagine that an Android SMB server *might* need root access, but at
least I'd expect that making Android behave as a client ought to be
possible.


By the way, going back to the instructions you have for enabling Windows
access over USB to part of Android's filesystem, are there any equivalent
instructions for allowing Windows to access files on an iOS device (eg
iPad). My wife took loads of photos on her iPad and we can't find any way of
copying them onto a Windows device to archive them - apart from by attaching
photos to emails and sending them that way, which isn't practical for a
large number of photos.

Out of the box, an Android device connected by USB to Windows shows up the
card and internal storage, allowing you to navigate to DCIM and then select
and copy files (photos). The iPad shows up but no folders are displayed.
It's things like that which I *hate* about Apple - too bloody clever and
proprietary. There probably is a way, but it will be very obscure and
require you to do it "the Apple way", probably with special software
installed on Windows.

I tried using iTunes on Windows, with the iPad connected by USB, but the
device didn't show up in iTunes at all, in the way that an iPod would do. If
it had shown up, I think iTunes would allowed me manual control over which
files I copied.