Can't access Samba share

I have three shared folders in my local home directory, that is, on /home/me/ on my Ubuntu desktop. All of these are set using "Share Options" in Nautilus' right-click menu. The standard Music and Videos folders are configured the same: the "Guest Access" box is checked, but the "Allow others to create and delete" box is unchecked. The third folder, called "Shared", is configured to not allow guest access, but allow others to modify files. I made no /etc/samba/smb.confmanual changes , just used the "Share Options" to create and modify these so called "Shares".

My roommate has two Windows 7 computers and an Ubuntu Netbook Remix netbook. I have the above desktop and laptop running 10.04. None of these machines can access any shares. Attempting to access the guest share shows the following message

\\machine\directory is not accessible. The network name could not be found.

This is an error message generated by a VM running Windows 2000. Other Windows computers also generate similar errors. Ubuntu laptop gives error Unable to mount location: Failed to mount Windows share. Hurrah, again for an informative error message. This really helps a lot.

When trying to browse a folder named "Shared" from my laptop, I get a password dialog. This behavior is the same on all computers I've tried in this situation. After entering the username and password of the account that the share belongs to, the password dialog briefly disappears and is replaced by an identical one. No error messages (helpful or not) are displayed.

When trying to browse this folder with the VM, the result is the same except the password dialog says "Bad username or password". My assumption is that the username and password in question is that of the user who owns the share. I've tried every other username and password combination available in this case and the result is the same.

I want to be able to share files. It's a nice feature to share them with Windows computers, or if you have one. In fact, I consider sharing files between two computers with the same version of the same operating system as a minimum for network availability.

The last time Samba worked reliably for me was over a decade ago. I've tried using it off and on since then, with only intermittent success.

Oh, and "Personal File Sharing" in the "Preferences" menu doesn't make an entry in "Locations" → "Network" → "My Servers". Actually, the old entry "MY-SERVER" is gone and replaced by "common files for koanhead on my-server" and when I try to open it from my laptop it gives "DBus.Error.NoReply: not Received message" replied. "

I know I'm here to talk a lot about Ubuntu, but on the other hand, I spend hours a day trying to fix things in Ubuntu. It's a good system for excellence and that's why things like this

1. need to work; or

2. There is sufficient documentation to prove it.

Ideally this is the case for both. Anyway, shout out. Hope someone will shed some light on this issue. Thanks to everyone who bothered to read this wall text for your time.