^^^ I don't know about the ARD thing, since I don't use it. I *do* know about the SMB issues you're having, though, since I see those almost every day.
The problem is 50% Apple's fault, because the Finder is royally half-assed. However the problem is also 50% Microsoft's fault, because they designed the SMB protocol as their revenge against an uncaring world. Here's a shortlist of the things I hate about it the most:
* No atomicity (if an SMB transaction is cancelled halfway through, there is a chance of causing file or filesystem corruption). As a side effect, this means:
** You can't cancel an SMB transaction halfway through unless the request times out or you get a response from the server. Once you start a transaction, you are committed, and your computer must sit on its ass for as long as it takes (or else you risk data loss).
** Even if you wait for the connection to timeout, there's still a chance of data corruption.
* The protocol is prone to "half-open" connections where a server thinks it's connected to a client but the client isn't connected to the server. This causes file locking issues, and also will prevent the client from re-connecting to the server.
* The protocol is also prone to half-open connections where a client thinks it's connected to a server but not vice-versa. This will cause the client to hang for long periods of time whenever someone attempts to start an SMB transaction, since the transaction can't be cancelled until it times out.
* Speaking of connection timeouts, they take a ridiculously long time, and since they happen so often, you'll spend a long time waiting around for them.
Macs also have trouble with the SMB protocol (the protocol used by Windows for sharing files over the network, also the protocol used by Samba on Linux) in version 10.5 Leopard and possibly 10.6 Snow Leopard. People will be able to connect to some shares but not others. There is no rhyme or reason.
Try killing any .DS_store files you find on your Windows boxes. (This is definitely Apple's fault, and whoever developed the .DS_store deserves to be beaten with a shovel.)
