try setting the IP addresses of the windows machine and linux on the same network segment (same subnet mask). This would show up the samba share on the network neighborhood.

Thanks, i'll try it out. Though, i did not want to have to modify my home network to match my work network settings.

there is more than just my own work laptop on the network here at my house. there is another laptop that belongs to a complete different network, but still needs access to browse to my shares here.

was hoping to solve this without having to make changes to either of the laptops, or having to match my home network details to those of any particular laptop (what if a friend comes over with their own laptop as well?)

As an aside, I've noticed that whenever any sort of change is made to a Windows network, it can take 30 minutes to 6 hours before the change shows up in network neighborhood. I believe that Windows likes to cache network status information, and rarely flushes it.

After getting very, very frustrated, I figured out the solution is to simply wait a few hours. That usually does the trick. I've seen some information somewhere on how to clear this cache.

Hope this helps.

--Dave