Now from a Finder window click on the Go menu and select Network. For safety’s sake check the box that says “Ask me before allowing others to use my CD drive.” Now your drive should be seen by your MacBook Air. The list on the left has one item called DVD or CD Sharing. Open System Preferences from the Apple Menu. If there is no Windows PC available, then this is now very easy in the most recent versions of OS X. You can now use it as if it was attached to your computer. Now hit the Connect button and that drive will open in Finder.

So in the server address you type the following:Īs you can see from the dialog box my computer is named Lenovo and I gave my D drive the shared name optical. In the resulting box type the following where the word COMPUTER is replaced by the name of your Windows PC and DRIVE is replaced by the shared name for your optical drive on that PC. Or you can just press Command+K on the keyboard. Select Go from the top menu and choose Connect to Server. Click OK and then OK again and the drive is now shared.īack on the MacBook Air, open Finder. In that box choose the Advanced Sharing… button and then check the top item which says “Share this folder” at the top of the resulting box. Choose Share With and then Advanced Sharing from the fly out menu. The best way to do that is open Windows Explorer and right click the drive.

If it is a Windows computer it will require setting up the optical drive (CD or DVD drive) as a shared resource in Windows. This will be different depending on what kind of computer you use as the source optical drive. Use Shared Optical Drive From Another Computer So you have to resort to one of the following means to get your programs installed. The MacBook Air forgoes the optical drive to keep it thin and small. When software comes on a CD or DVD and you want to install it on a MacBook Air, you can’t just pop open the disc drive or slide a disc into a slot, like you would on a computer with an optical drive.

Macbook air cd drive