Mounting Windows Shares with Nautilus

From time to time I need to access a Windows share on a domain (not is a local work group) via Nautilus (the LinuxMint file browser I use). It always takes me too long to figure out the trick...

The trick: The domain has to be specified in upper case (or perhaps it's simply case sensitive and it depends how the domain administrator has specified the domain). So in Nautilus, I do File-> Connect to Server..., then fill in the appropriate values in the dialogue that appears, with domain in upper case.

To debug issues when connecting to Windows shares, I open a Terminal window and type:

smbclient -U domain\\windows_user_name //windows_server_name/share

and follow the prompts.

If that works, I try:

gvfs-mount "smb://domain;windows_user_name@windows_server_name/share"

and follow the prompts. (The quotes are required because the semi-colon is a special character to the Terminal program.) I have seen cases where the mount takes a minute or so to connect, so I have to be patient.

If the above works, I unmount the drive with:

gvfs-mount -u "smb://domain;windows_user_name@windows_server_name/share"