samba - Sep 2007 - Can't see shares, and also smbmount works but mount -t cifs doesn't

Hi
(this is most likely a newbie question).

A couple of problems.   I have a linux guest (puppy) running on vmplayer on a
friend's machine, which runs WinXP home. I have folder sharing enabled on
the host for a few different folders.   I am trying to mount the winxp host
shared folders onto the linux guest.

First problem is that I can't seem to see the shares.  smbtree only lists
the host name and the workgroup, as so:

MSHOME
                       \\JOHNCOMP

Likewise, smbclient -L JOHNCOMP               or:
                    smbclient -L 192.168.128.1   

returns this error:


Domain=[COMP] OS=[Windows 5.1] Server=[Windows 2000 LAN Manager]

	Sharename	Type	Comment
	---------	----	-------
Error returning browse list: NT_STATUS_OK
Domain=[COMP] OS=[Windows 5.1] Server=[Windows 2000 LAN Manager]

	Server		Comment
	------		-------

	Workgroup	Master
	---------	                     ------


However, the shares *are* there, as I can mount them with e.g.

smbmount //JOHNCOMP/music /mnt/share ,

and have no problems accessing the files from the shared folder
"music" on "JOHNCOMP".  I don't seem to need the -o
password or username options,  unlike other people out there on google, I
don't know why... (Simple file sharing on XP home doesn't have password
controls enabled, right?).

Second problem:

Though I can mount the share with smbmount, even though I can't see it with
smbtree / smbclient -L, I can't seem to mount it with "mount -t
cifs" or "mount -t smbfs".

I get this error:

mount -t cifs //JOHNCOMP/music /share        
 OR:
mount -t smbfs //JOHNCOMP/music /share
	
gives:

mount: Mounting //KATECOMP/Music on /share failed: Invalid argument


Can anyone help?


PS.  One other thing is that I first tried this set up on my XP partition on my
own computer before trying it on my friends, and had no problem seeing my shares
with smbtree/smbclient -L...   - seeing as I'm using the same virtual
machine on his as on mine, does this mean there is some problem with the
networking setup on the XP host itself?

PPS. I've noticed that on my machine I've been able to do all of the
above successfully without ever writing my own smb.conf.  Why is this?  How come
using smbmount etc. worked ok on *my* computer without needing to do so?