[rwallace]

No. Should I? Is it the case that my machine is exposed without them, and creating them is necessary to solve the problem? Or that it's fine the way it is now, and creating them would cause the very problem I would be hoping to solve?

[undfg]

I have no idea, I'm saying that you can add them if they don't exist. (or just don't open up your SMB port to the wan...)

[tonyedgecombe]

I suspect you are looking for them in the wrong place. I've never seen an installation without them.

[rwallace]

By way of verification, not only did I double check the path in regedit, but I also tried copy pasting the command line from the Microsoft page, and that gave path not found.