Browsing Samba Server from Vista

[dougbunger]

I had a Samba server that worked as expected, but after four years of operation, I had to upgraded for a different reason. After much pain and agony, Samba *almost* works.

The Big Problem: On XP, the Samba server "Scully" appears in "My Network Places". On the Vista and Win7, the server is not seen in "Network". The shares can be accessed and mapped if the name \\Scully or IP address is provided \\192.168.X.Y, but it can not be browsed.

I've seen several posts about secpol, but none of my Vistas or Win7s have this option. (Seems to be disabled in "Home".)

How have you gotten Vista or Win7 to browse Samba?

[scott32746]

I have it working on Vista and win7. Check and see if WORKGROUP in Vista/win7 is correct

[dougbunger]

Yes, the WORKGROUP is correct, as I can map drives. As long as I access the share directly, it works. When I go to "Network" on Vista of Win7, the machines all see each other, but they don't see the Samba server. In other words, if you go to the Vista machine, click "Start" and "Network", the Samba server should appear, and if double clicked, be show its shares.

[bbfuller]

Hello dougbunger

I've just checked to confirm what I thought is true, and that is that my windows Vista machine quite happily browses my samba machine - as do my windows XP and windows 7 machines.

As XP can browse samba, it sounds much more likely that it's a Windows configuration problem than a samba one.

Can the Windows Vista/7 machines see shares on each other and on the XP machine?

[marcrblevins]

Is the ports open in your Windows Vista/7?

[dougbunger]

Thanks for the input bbfuller. I checked my Vista laptop, and it browse Vista "Virgil" and Win7 "Vesen" but has no visibility to XP "Mulder" or Samba "Scully". So Vista browses Vista and above.

XP "Mulder" can see Samba "Scully" and another XP "Maiden", but not Virgil, Vesen, or my Vista laptop. It doesn't surprise me that XP and Vista can't see each other, I just figured that to be programmed obsolescence, as they say.

To test if it was a port thing, as marcrblevins stated, I turned off the laptop's firewall. No luck. Still can't see Scully. Along those lines, the laptop is the only device that is wireless. For fun, I hooked it to the same hub as Mulder, but that didn't help either.

Here's a dump of testparm:

[global]
workgroup = XXWORKGROUPXX
server string = Samba Server Version %v
client NTLMv2 auth = Yes
log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m
max log size = 50
os level = 75
preferred master = Yes
domain master = Yes
wins support = Yes
[samba]
comment = Samba
path = /samba
write list = +admin
read only = No
create mask = 0664
guest ok = Yes

[bbfuller]

Hello dougbunger

I just figured that to be programmed obsolescence, as they say

I don't think that's the case at all. I've got my laptop booted into Windows 7, and a series of desktops of varying abilities booted into WinXP, Win Vista and Fedora 12.

With proper shares set up on each of the machines, I can access any of the machines from each other.

I don't have these parameters in my smb.conf:

preferred master = Yes
domain master = Yes
wins support = Yes

but that should not affect your ability to connect between the windows machines.

I think you need to sort out that inability of your Windows machines to see each other. When they do, I suspect that the Linux visibility will fall into place.

By the way, I've not investigated it, but I understand that the basic editions of Vista/Win7 have limitations to their networking. I assume that isn't a factor?

[dougbunger]

Unfortunately... an unsafe assumption. Yes, the laptop is Vista Home Premium, and the Win7 is Home Premium. Oddly, I found one Vista that works perfect-- It sees two XP machines, the Samba server, and two Vista laptops, and the Win7.

There are three differences. The first is that it has a hack in place that allows Remote Desktop Connection to run on Vista Home. The second was that it was SP1 and the laptop was SP2. The third was that it was static IP, and the laptop was dynamic (since it was wireless). Rather than bore you with hours of work that it took, we'll go straight to the punchline:

I set the laptop to static IP and it works perfectly. Now it sees Vista, Win7, XP, and Samba. I'll check addressing on the others.

Thanks for letting me bounce that problem off you guys. Sometimes it takes some outside input to get going in the right direction

[SlowJet]

If you are NOT using kbr5
the F13 samba 3.5.0pre2 has
smb2 protocol which is in Vista (updated) and Win 7.

Add this line to the global area (anywhere in the top section)
max protocol = smb2

May want to try it out..

SJ

[pranavgandhi]

Using SAMBA 3.0.35 and VISTA users are not able to use SAMBA shared folder. NT Account is getting locked. Using Security mode "SERVER". Authenticating against NT Domain Controller.
I can't change any VISTA registry keys as per company policy.
Looking for solution other than registry keys editing.