Hi.

Currently we're running linux file servers using Samba, while all work stations are windows 7. We have no domain, the accounts are created and stored locally on each PC.

Every machines have accounts called "Employee" and "Student"

Is there a way to set Samba so that it only allow "Employee" to access the shared directories but not "Student"? Can Samba detects windows' user account?

I tried to add "valid users Employee" to smb.conf but then the entire office lost access to the file server.

Any help appreciate. Thanks.

without domain samba cannot handle users on windows. Therefore I suggest you to create special users on the samba server and use that account to connect (from windows).