With Windows boxes, and an administrator's password, I can reach their hidden root directory share across the network by going to the following share URL:

\\boxname\c$

What's the equivalent URL to reach the root directory of a Mac OSX box across the network?

AFP://boxname/NameOfRootDrive

Via SMB, you need something like SharePoints to share anything beyond home directories. Lepoard will have similar functionality (finally). Keep in mind that even as an "admin" user, writing to files at the root or other places is usually restricted. You will only be able to modify files where you normally can on the local machine without seeing the authentication popup.

So in other words, I can't do it (without sharepoints) from a Windows box because windows boxes only speak Samba?

Windows boxes (and OS/2) speak SMB, correct. Samba is a program used to speak SMB on non MS/IBM platforms, like OS X.

Sharepoints isn't required, but makes it easier in your case then learning how to edit the smb.conf file on OS X to share what you want. OS X by default only shares user folders via SMB when it is enabled, unlike Windows where it also shares the entire hard drive.

AFP is Apple's network file protocol, dating back to the days of AppleTalk networks. On OS X when enabled, it shared the entire disk to admin users, and user folders. There was an AFP client for Windows that Microsoft included, but it was dropped in XP and above, likely due to MS not wanting to update it to the OS X version 3 protocol.

If you don't care about security at all, you could add something like this to your smb.conf file. (disclaimer: I don't own a mac...this would work under linux)

Code:

---

[root$]
   path = /
   read only = no
   guest ok = yes  
   guest only = yes
   public = yes

---

And yet you use Windows.