I am running Ubuntu 9.04, and wish to share a folder to be accessed without logging in via Windows Vista. If I set up the share through the nautilus right-click menu and enable "Guest Account", the share is inaccessible. The folder shows up, but it fails to mount. Vista says that it can see the computer, but not the shared folder.

The folder is
/home/william/shared

The only way I can get it to work is if I change the permissions of the folder
/home/william
to allow Others to access files.

Is this the best way to enable guest access?

Well it works, and that usually is what goes...

However, I think you should only do this if security is not a concern. Not sure, but you might make your system vulnerable by just simply allowing "Other" permissions on a SAMBA shared folder.