It is possible to use the macOS Windows File Sharing (or SMB sharing) features in order to share a folder over the network to Windows systems (both physical and virtual). In fact, this is a potential workaround for the lack of Fusion shared folders for Windows ARM virtual machines.
However, the Mac does not appear as in the list of computers when browsing the network through Windows File Explorer. Since the Mac doesn't appear when browsing, you'll need to enter the DNS hostname or IP address of the Mac in the File Explorer address bar in a format similar to \\dns-hostname or \\ip-address-of-mac . Once that's done, you will get a prompt for credentials and then the shares available on the Mac will be visible in File Explorer.
The reason that the Mac computer can't be browsed through Windows File Explorer is that the Mac does not advertise the computer so Windows can see it. macOS does not natively implement the WS-Discovery protocol used by File Explorer in newer versions of Windows to find and display available computers on a local network. (Evidently this is also an issue for other operating systems such as Linux and BSD UNIX derivatives).
Fortunately the internet comes to the rescue. Eugene Gershnik has written a small utility called wsdd-native. wsdd-native fills in the gap by advertising the Mac with the WS-Discovery protocol. (and yes, it's smart enough to automatically discover your use of macOS Windows (SMB) File Sharing as well as Samba when running on Linux computers).
wsdd-native can be installed easily as it has a standalone macOS installation package. (It also has the ability to be installed via Homebrew or MacPorts if that's your preference). It runs in the background, can be started at system boot (this appears to be the default when installing on macOS) and requires little to no configuration to get it to work out of the box. It also appears to be light-weight. I haven't even noticed it running on my Mac.
The developer also provides an uninstaller script as part of the product should you decide you don't want to use it any longer (a nice touch, and one that all software vendors should provide).
By default wsdd-native advertises the host on all available network interfaces. You can change the configuration to restrict network interfaces, etc. Documentation is available on how to do this (via man pages).
So I decided to give this a try.
I downloaded the standalone installer, installed it on my Mac and... Voila! Out-of-the-box my Mac named "Upstairs" now appears as a computer in the Network section of File Explorer.
Double clicking on the computer asks for credentials. After I provided my Mac username/password all of the shares I'd defined appear.
I tried this for both NAT and Bridged networking. Worked fine with no issues.
Two thumbs up in my opinion.
wsdd-native can be found for download at https://github.com/gershnik/wsdd-native
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Paul Rockwell (technogeezer)
vExpert 2026 (3x)
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