Ubuntu Networking :: Mounting / Automounting / Setup Troubleshooting

I need help to figure out mounting. I have 3 computers running Natty. 1 a desktop 64bit dual boot with Win7 (64) Home Prem; a dell inspiron mini (32bit) dual boot with Win7 Home Prem, and an old 486 Intel based PC running ONLY Ubuntu. My Samba shares are on an external HD currently residing on the 64 bit. I installed Mount Manager...still trying to figure out how it works exactly. I'd like to auto-mount the shares "routinely accessed" (shared network drive, network personal for each machine) allowing as needed access. Then the other personal network drives I would like to mount only when needed. Leaving local home drives password/share protected ... using the network personal folders as a place to add files or such that need to go to a local drive.

{basically I have 3 computers which each have a local home folder, and a network home folder; then I have a network shared share where open shares will be stored (email, calendar, most documents, theetc) each computer has a primary ubuntu user (user id 1000). I have 3 windows ids on 2 computers. each of these ids has been paired with an ubuntu user in smbusers; after this weekend I will only have 1 windows share and 1 user hopefully! so the other two ubuntu users will have non-existent windows IDs}Right now I can (from a non-server machine) access the shared network drive, but cannot access any others. (Makes sense...that share is totally open). On the remote drive I have samba the the installed but no samba directory and it hasn't been configured (obviously).On the standalone (where the HD is attached) I can access any of them by mounting them where they are listed under Places, but through the network menu I can access the shared drive, and the personal drive with just one password entry (my login or sudo password). The others whenever I enter my login/sudo password I get an unable to mount error.

I currently have 3 Ubuntu users & 3 windows users. I've assigned each Ubuntu user an window user name hoping that would make the authorizations easier. I'm currently using a generic Samba password and a generic Ubuntu login password but they are different. So one password for each, each user has the same passwords. I do allow guests using the guest group (not nobody, but I could change that easily enough)If I weren't so stubborn I'd just ditch the passwords, make all shares open to everybody, but eventually I hope to be able to do remote access (via mobile) and would rather just do it all from the beginning than mess with it later.I've been hesitant to mess with programming in the mount/unmount process because I'm not sure I understand it that well (which is why I installed Mount Manager). Problem is I don't understand it well enough to figure out how to use Mount Manager. I did see where automount will not work if you have to authenticate the share before mounting. One of the reasons I only want to automount the 2 shares for each machine. That particular process sounded like what i want for those 2 connections on each. But first I need to figure out mounting period I guess.I may be really confused, or trying to do something that I with my limited knowledge and needs really don't want or need to do....wouldn't be surprising! I'm known to make things more complicated than needed. If a simpler approach seems more logical feel free to share!