By default, Windows will only allow you to mount one share per destination computer at a time. For example, if you’re working on a Windows computer, and have a file server running samba with multiple users, you may run in to this issue.
One way around this limitation is to create additional DNS entries (either on a local DNS machine or in the host file of the Windows machine) per share.
Let’s assume your Samba server has three different shares, each owned by a different user: Share1, owned by User1; Share2, owned by User2; Share3, owned by User3. For this example, the IP address of the Samba server is 192.168.1.100.
If you are running a local DNS server, you can simply add additional records pointing to the Samba server. If the local domain name of the Samba server is samba.lan, you could add records such as share1.samba.lan, share2.samba.lan, and share3.samba.lan. Then, on the Windows machine, attempt to access Share1 by the following address in file explorer:
\\share1.samba.lan\shareName
Windows will prompt you for credentials. Enter the credentials for User1. Repeat for Share2/User2, and Share3/User3.
If you do not have a locally running DNS server, you can still use this same method. Open up Notepad, running as Administrator, and open up the host file (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts). Add entries similar to the following:
192.168.1.100 share1.samba.lan
192.168.1.100 share2.samba.lan
192.168.1.100 share3.samba.lan
and save the file. That will achieve the same results as adding records to a local DNS server, but only for the local computer. Once you’ve made these changes, open up file explorer, enter \\share1.samba.lan\shareName in the address bar, and enter the credentials for User1.
Pretty simple!