samba - Jul 2004 - How to access Windows machine from Linux using Samba.

I have few questions 
1. I installed samba on my Linux box. When I invoke any Samba tool e.g.
smbclient or findsmb error is reported "unable to open configuration
file smb.conf run testparm to debug it". I ran testparm but could not
solve the problem. 

2. I have a Windows machine which I want to access from the linux
machine. I Samba is there to help in this problem ? How should I achieve
this using Samba. I checked the documentation available on samba.org but
found it too much away from my problem. 

Thanks in Advance. 

..Ba