What to use instead of Samba?

[Victor Odhner]

Over the past week I have blown my entire lifetime allotment
of time that I can afford to invest in Samba, so I'm done.

Please don't offer help on this subject, my post is just
a statement of grief, it's over now, I'm getting past the
denial stage and into mourning.  I tried everything Google
had to offer -- hundreds of changes to the config, turned
off iptables and the Windows firewall, etc.  I have given
up, and I'm not the only one so I guess it's just how it
is gonna be.

My wife's XP machine will never access a Samba share on
my Linux box.  Pity, but apparently I've got *lots* of
company.

So where to now:  does anonymous rsync work from Windows?

(Note:  I'm about to post a more important request.
This one is just a gripe, the next one is critical
to my ability to stay with Linux.)

Vic