Regular ftp uses 21 as a control port and ssh uses 22. I've never tried fireftp so I can't say how well it works. I would use WinSCP or filezilla as previously suggested.

I did manage to get winscp working on the windows 7 pc, it can connect unlike the other 2 programs.
https://winscp.net/eng/docs/free_sft...nt_for_windows
But, it simply downloads everything locally when you click on a file.

what I really wanted to do, was to be able to browse video files, then when I click on them on the windows PC, they simply start immediately playing. With VLC you can paste in the url, and they will immediately play. But you can not browse the network to view files with VLC.

The goal is not file transfer here, just streaming play.

I think I got something working good now.
I spent some time setting up miniDLNA server on ubuntu.
Then using WMP on windows 7, on the left pane it shows my scottdlna server.
At first it could not play some video files, while playing others. So I downloaded win7 codec pack. Of course they have 2 add ons you dont want, so be careful.

And now WMP in win 7 can play all the video files, no downloading needed.

The setup info is here, but old, and there is minidlna and also a minidlanad
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MiniDLNA

next step have it run at startup.

Does the $USER , can it stay like that or need to edit in my user name?
Does this file need to be executable?

I ran gedit ~/.config/autostart/minidlna.desktop
to create this file, is this correct?

Good, samba should also work.

I don't know, it might want to download the file.