[swerdna]

I've got a mental note to file a bug on that smbfs problem (won't start). But that won't prevent a mount, simply delays the mount during boot up.

You should make the VM machine obtain an IP on the same subnet as your other machines (not 127.0.0.1 -- more like 192.168.33.Z or whatever). In my setup I use VMware Server and "bridged" networking. That makes my VM a fully fledged member of the LAN. Then mount.cifs works fine.