Windows 10 file sharing: frustration and a workround

Setting up a new laptop for a colleague; it runs Windows 10 and my knowledge stopped, more or less, at Windows 7.

There's software I need on the Samba file server on the home network.  But can I get this thing to see the server?  I've spent hours on it, and seen hundreds of articles on the web in which the same problem is discussed, and almost as many attempts to fix it.  I tried a few of the most likely (enable discovery and file sharing, fiddle around with SMB protocols) all to no avail.

I can ping the server; I can list the shares with net view; I just can't get them to appear in the "Network" explorer.

I still haven't fixed it, but I have managed to get access to the drive I need by the simple expedient of selecting "Map a network drive", filling in the IP address of the server and telling it to use different credentials.  Up it comes.

It appears that Microsoft have changed (spell that b-r-o-k-e-n) something in the way that Windows 10 connects to file shares, but nobody knows quite what.