I’m going to do something today that I rarely do: give Microsoft some props.
Over the years it’s arguable that they have screwed up just about everything they have put their hands on, but there is one project out there that they nailed off-the-bat: SMB.
SMB, or “Server Message Block” (which it has never been called in the history of forever, as it essentially has no meaning), is “an application-layer network protocol mainly used for providing shared access to files, printers,… and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an authenticated inter-process communication mechanism.” (From the SMB Wikipedia Article)
In English, that means that it’s a file sharing protocol that allows you to share files, printers, and other things- and lets users log in to access them. On the whole, that’s not really a big deal; there are many protocols that give you similar functionality.
But here’s the thing: it just works.
Samba, the free software SMB implementation, is the single-best way to share content on a local network. What’s great about SMB is that everything can play well together: Windows, Mac, and Linux can all share on a local network together.
[caption id=”attachment_1094” align=”aligncenter” width=”400”]
Samba, not Simba[/caption]
But not only that, there’s no tricky configuration. Any idiot can share a printer or add a shared folder or drive. Two-clicks and you’re done. It works out of the box.
So, good on you, Microsoft. At least you did one thing right.