So I went to Network Places-->Samba Shares--[name of another computer in my network], and found that it wants a username and password. I suppose that must be a password made by the network administrator that I have to find out? because I never made a samba password for myself; I didn't know I'd need one to access the other computer. (My dad never mentioned setting a password; the network is used only by family members.) I've only just started trying to use the network for more than internet browsing and generally don't know what I'm doing yet.

Yes, that would be the password for the account on whichever Samba share you're trying to access. If there was no password set, you might just need the username and no password.

Is it possible that no account has been set up yet? It's not just the Windows user account password on the other computer, is it?

I'm not abundantly familiar with Windows, but there would probably be at least one user account, so it could very well be just the Windows user account password on the other computer, as you say. In my experience, most home Windows users just have one account on their machines, they don't seem to get the whole "multi-user" thing, and therefore don't have them set up for multiple accounts (say, a different account for each family member). Crazy, I know. Even most Mac home users I know seem to get this, and do actually set up accounts for each family member. But then, Mac OSX is a true, Unix-based multi-user environment. I don't know if that's the case with Windows these days, or not.

In a simple Samba setup, there normally needs to be a Linux login account on the Samba server and a Samba with the same username and password that is set using the smbpasswd command. There would be nothing wrong with using the existing Windows login name and password for setting this up; Windows will pass the credentials to the Samba server upon connection.

If no Windows login and password is being used, one should be configured and employed.

This is the friendliest reference I've found on Samba: http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-Guide/

If the Windows password stinks (e.g., 1234 or qwerty or other suspects), change it first, then set the Samba password.

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