wine users - Aug 2011 - Windows and Ubuntu and Windows and......

Hi folks
I am a complete noob to this Ubuntu stuff, so please forgive me if I ask a dumb
Question, or ramble on....
I have been told that I am trying to run before I can crawl, but here goes.....

I have a few old Windows programs that are no longer supported or run correctly
on Vista or Win7, but work happily in XP. These are used for my business and are
mission critical. The two main ones are Labels Unlimited and Sage Line50 ver11.
I am fed up with being told to keep buying new software because Windows no
longer supports my software. LU2 is no longer available, So I have been
persuaded to try Ubuntu.

So far so good.
Here's the snag - both programs access their data across the Windows Domain,
and need to see a mapped drive (G: )!

I have installed Ubuntu and Wine(1.2)and Samba. I have (after a bit of faffing
around) installed both software packages on the Ubuntu computer. They both seem
to work fine with local data. I can see (and mount) the windows data share
(server1/data), however I cannot seem to find out how to assign a drive letter
to it. I realise that Linux doesn't use drive letters in the same way and
have been told that Samba is the way to do it, but it seems that Samba is fine
for sharing Linux folders, but not what I need.
Bearing in mind that I am a complete novice with Ubuntu (cant even find the
Terminal window!!), have only been trying it (Ubuntu) for 4 days, and my
programming skills stopped at 6502 assy language and paper tape Basic. Can
anyone talk this dunce throw the operations, or is there a "Dummies
Guide"? I have spent a day and a bit browsing the Interweb thingy and have
found lots of stuff about accessing Windows shares, but nothing in particular
showing how I can assign a drive letter to a Windows share, so that I can run
Windows software under Ubuntu.
I realise that this may be an unusual way of running things, but surely I cant
be the only one?

I have seen that others have used Sage Line50 on Linux, so I can only think that
I must be having "finger" trouble in mapping a windows network share.
I have done a quick search, but to no avail. Can anyone assist?

Windows uses drive letters... Linux does not.

You need to do what it says.. and mount shares onto your machine, which will
mount to a folder.  Once you have access to the network drive just fine in
Linux... then you can config that link in Wine so its seen as a drive letter to
the Windows program.  Run winecfg ('wine winecfg' in Terminal), and you
should find a tab there where you can set up drive letters and pick where you
want them pointed to on your machine.

That is what has me confused. I can mount the Windows share - it comes up on the
desktop, but I cant find it thru Wincfg to allocate a letter to it. I am sure it
is finger trouble on my part, but that doesnt help me figure it out :(.

Geez.  It's not that hard.

I usually make an fstab entry to always mount the remote
filesystem in, say, /net/hostname/sharename,
then make a drive letter with a symlink, e.g.
  ln -s /net/fooserver/fooshare ~/.wine/dos_devices/g:

For how to make that fstab entry, see e.g.
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/configure-a-system-to-automount-a-samba-share-with-etcfstab/
or
http://opensuse.swerdna.org/susesambacifs.html