I figured out the "smb:// is not a valid location" issue. libgnomevfs2-extra was, for whatever reason, NOT installed on this machine.
Places -> Network Servers still gives me nothing. -- Cannot access any Samba shares https://launchpad.net/bugs/68036 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
