What you describe is easy to do (in fact I connect to the HIT file server from my Mac without special software). Share the folder on the Windows system, go to the Mac, in the Finder (will show in the top left corner, if not, click on a blank area of the desktop) then go to the "Go" menu, select "Connect to server...." and type in the address of the shared folder in the format of protocol + :// + server + file path. So to connect to my personal space on the HIT file server I use
smb://team-user2/murrayt5 which prompts me for my network logon and password, then "mounts" the shared folder on the Mac. That's it.