Leopard automatically detects SMB shares, which is nice, but I can't get their
names to look nice. In windows on the other computers I tried to set the names
to something like "Mike's Computer" but it wouldn't work because windows won't
let you put and spaces or special characters in the name. You can do this in the
computer description, but thats not what shows up in Leopard's finder sidebar.
Any idea how to change the names of windows computers to look nicer? 
Ahh, this is an easy one.
If they are using XP, dont change the DESCRIPTION of the computer, you need to actually change the name.
Control Panel > System > Computer Name
now you should see the computer's name; most likely the ugly names that you see in the Shared SMB section in Finder.
To change this, simply click the CHANGE button at the bottom of the window.
I'm pretty sure it works a lot like this for Vista too if some or all of those machines run it.
//EDIT:
oh yeah....no special characters or spaces :slant:
Have you tried renaming the names in Finder? Click and hold the mouse on the name of the SMB share for about a second. You should be able to change the name now.
I tried to do this last week & failed. Don't think it can be done. :|
This is a problem which stems from ages long past:
NetBios names can be uppercase, 15(+1) 7-bit ASCII characters at max. and various other constraints - nowadays this is barely a moniker, not a name.
Windows helps itself by putting the share name onto the foreground and pushing the SMB name onto a details column.
File an enhancement request at Cupertino.
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