I initially searched for a way to keep mounts persistent across sessions and there were all sorts of suggestions that required root and modification of either /etc/fstab or editing of the Disks section of settings. For Mint, this is not an optimal way of doing stuff as it's not targeted as a "hacky" OS. Then I discovered this fantastic app and it works perfectly and allows for mounts to pretty much any kind of file system, including SMB! Very impressed and this absolutely should be included in future versions of Mint by default!
Don't know why this isn't built-in to linux, but at least it does the job and doesn't get in your way.
An easy solution for Mint9 LXDE to have samba functionality. Very simple to use, a must have!