Here's my setup:

I have Mandrake 10 installed on a laptop that I am trying to connect to my home network. There are several other computers, 3 winxp and 1 win2000. They all can see each other and their shares work properly. This laptop running windows xp can see everything properly. The network is basically controlled by the linksys router that connects up to the cable modem to share internet access on all the computers. Internet works fine on each computer.

The problem arises when I try to browse the smb shares of the other windows computers from my linux laptop. The windows computers can see me and my shares which work fine and are writable. Therefore, I know that samba is almost working properly. When I try to browse the other computers in LinNeighborhood they computer name shows up but when I double click it to see their shares, nothing happens. When I try to browse in smb4k only my computer shows up. When I try to mount them manually from the terminal it says it can not locate the computer. Here's the output of that (i am "stevyn" and Library is a windows xp box with a share called "Data"

[root@localhost stevyn]# smbmount //Library/Date /home/stevyn/lib_data
7406: Connection to Library failed
SMB connection failed
[root@localhost stevyn]#

Everything I've found from googling for two days explains the opposite, linux not being seen from windows so this confuses me. Here is my smb.conf file:

# Samba config file created using SWAT
# from 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1)
# Date: 2004/05/27 13:28:01

# Global parameters
[global]
workgroup = MSHOME
netbios name = STEVYN-MANDRAKE
server string = laptop
map to guest = Bad User
null passwords = Yes
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
max log size = 50
server signing = auto
socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_SNDBUF=8192 SO_RCVBUF=8192
printcap name = cups
preferred master = No
domain master = No
dns proxy = No
ldap ssl = no
printer admin = @adm
guest ok = Yes
printing = cups
encrypt passwords = yes
security = share
ro
[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/spool/samba
create mask = 0700
printable = Yes
print command = lpr-cups -P %p -o raw %s -r # using client side printer drivers.
browseable = No

[pdf-generator]
comment = PDF Generator (only valid users)
path = /var/tmp
printable = Yes
print command = /usr/share/samba/scripts/print-pdf %s ~%u //%L/%u %m %I "%J" &

[MY_MUSIC]
path = /mnt/win_c2/My Music

[LINUX]
path = /mnt/win_c2/Linux

[SHARED_DOCS]
path = /home/stevyn/Shared_Docs
admin users = nobody,stevyn
force user = nobody
force group = fileshare
inherit permissions = yes
inherit acls = yes
msdfs proxy = no
read only = no


By the way, none of these computers have a firewall on them, that's all done through the router. Any ideas?

sorry, that "ro" above [printers] doesn't appear in the file, it's a typo. everything else looks good though

High Stevyn,

I believe, that your mounting-problem has nothing to do with your smb.conf or with your samba-server. The smbclient is a sepatate tool, you could it use also, when you would not have a samba-server running.
Frendly greetings from germany,
by Heinz.