OK, so after yet another kernel and samba update in 12.04 now my ability to share between Ubuntu and Windows is broken again, for no apparent reason. I go into Samba and it tells me the server is in WORKGROUP and description "%h server (Samba, Ubuntu)" - same as always, worked before. Only Ubuntu sees absolutely nothing in the Windows network. The "Personal File Sharing" thing continues to be a bad joke because the right packages are never installed - what's the point of even having it there? But that is a different matter.

I uninstalled and re-installed Samba in case some sub-package was broken... still no luck.

Honestly this stuff seemed to work more reliably back in 10.04 and even 8.04.

Any guides on how to troubleshoot Samba?