I couldn't find any way to do it on the Unity desktop I've been playing with, but I'm still lost with it.
But Ubuntu 10.04 was doable with a little fanageling...
On the desktop I right-click->Create Launcher. Set TYPE to "Location". There was a browse option that was next to useless so I put in the location "smb://Hostname/Sharename/" without quotes. Works! But that's Gnome 2 (sigh). Maybe that's how you did it before?
I saw no desktop Launcher of ANY kind in Unity. Again, the exact distro/desktop you're using is a must. Is it Unity? I've been trying to give it a chance - nice hot-key support if I didn't have to redo them all.
EDIT: Maxo posted the what must be what I initially used a few years ago. Maxo, it looks familiar!
The best way I can think of helping is to make you aware how the fstab mount method differs in details how Nautilus mounts things. Nautilus uses a different method which has a buzzword "fuse" and it differs in sometimes-gotcha ways.