[Samba] Samba on top of Windows?

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Hi all,

I just bought a brand new PC for my living room (Asus eee Box) that
happens to come with Windows 7. I can nicely plug in large USB hard
drives, any my intention was to share these harddrives on the network,
for example with my old Windows 98 PC on which I still run some favorite
computer games. And of course, I would also like to access the large
harddrive occasionally from my linux box (e.g. to put backups on them).

However, I had to learn that Windows 7 does not want to share my
harddrive with the other computer on the network that are not Windows 7.
All tried all different kinds of things: I switched off the "home
group", I switched off various encryption/security settings in the
control panel. I even changed some registry settings that I googled from
the web. All without success. I spare you the technical details on this...

I can't understand why it has to be so hard to just export a simple
harddisk on the network. With every single version upgrade of Windows,
it breaks. From Windows 95 to Windows 98. From Windows 98 to Windows XP.
And now with Windows 7, again. IMHO, the purpose of networking is to
COMMUNICATE with whichever protocol is out there.

I don't want to deal with neither Windows domain controllers, nor home
groups, nor roaming profiles, nor encryption requirements, nor anything
that Windows will come up with in the next release that breaks
everything else. I would like just export a hard disk with a user-name
and a password and use it with everything from Windows 3.1 to my Linux
box without getting a headache.

So, my question is:
Is it possible to run Samba on top of Windows?

Thanks for your help in advance.

Cheers,
G.