Administration -> Shared Folders basically doesn't work. True?

[Chanchao]

Made a folder /var/shared
Chmodded it to 777
Added it to Administration -> Shared Folders
Made sure to make it NOT read-only and allow browsing the folder.
In general settings I set the workgroup to 'workgroup', same as on the
windows machines on my network.

(Basically for this folder I need absolutely everyone and their dogs to
have full access to that folder, so they can dump files in it)

It however doesn't work.  When connecting to \\ubuntu, it pops up a
username and password box..  This is not what I want at all, I want a
folder that's freely accessible, as specified in the Administration
panel.

At this point I gave up on Administration -> Shared Files as it
obviously doesn't work well yet.  So on to doing things manually. Read
some Samba tutorials, and came up with the following smb.conf file:

# Global Parameters
[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUP
server string = Ubuntu
netbios name = Ubuntu
wins support = no
encrypt passwords = yes

[homes]
read only = no
browseable = no

[shared]
path = /var/shared
public = yes
read only = no
available = yes
browseable = yes
writable = yes

------------

(I did make sure to turn Samba file sharing off in 'Services', then back
on again after updating the config file.)

Still... Nobody can get in. They get a username & password box. Typing
'Guest' doesn't help either. 

Thoughts?

Note that I added myself with smbpasswd, so when I specify my username
and password in that box that comes up then I can get in..  

Or is this just not possible with Samba type networking?  It must be
possible because it works fine on Windows.. Connect to the computer and
there the files are.

Cheers,
Chanchao