I would like samba to be installed and configured by default.
Alex
This was discussed in the G+ community a few months back. I decided I won’t be installing any server packages, such as samba or apache, by default because Ubuntu MATE is primarily a desktop distribution. Sorry to disappoint, but Ubuntu MATE can’t be all things to all people.
That said, there are additional MATE packages available for install that facilitate sharing files via samba and apache. I welcome any how to documents for this use case in the Tips, Tricks and Tutorials category 
Thanks for the reply. I have a laptop that I need to use windows on. I have
been using mint with mate with samba installed. When i started trying UM on
vb this was the only thing I needed to install and I had do to some
googling as I forgot how to set it up.
When I install UM on hardware I think I will I will put the samba setup in
your tips and tricks.
I think UM is a great distro and I will install eventually but my current
install is still working well
Thanks Alex