Mavericks cannot connect to windows share by computer name, but works fine with IP
It is likely a name resolution issue, which is usually the case when an IP address works and a name does not.

there are a couple of things you can do


if the PCs have IP addresses that rarely, or never, change you could add those to the hosts file. Just open up the terminal.app and:


sudo nano /private/etc/hosts

After the last entry just put the IP addresses of the PCs in there like this:

192.168.x.x pc-one

192.168.x.x pc-two

(substituting the IP addresses of the PCs for what you have) then save and exit. You'll want to flush the DNS cache. I usually just reboot but there are terminal commands depending on your OS version.


If you don't mind installing some Apple software on your PC, Bonjour is part of the iTunes install and will automatically register names on the local network.


It is unlikely that it is a firewall issue as you can connect via IP. The firewall would block that too.

Also if you give it time any computers that the Mac can connect to (in recent OS versions) will show up in the Finder's sidebar. Bonjour will help with that.

You can also add the IP addresses of all your PCs in the connect to server dialog box, enter in the ip address and click the + button before you click connect. It ain't intuitive but it's better than nothing... ;-)