How do I re-install Samba?

I recently followed a guide to configure Samba but I couldn't get it configured properly. After realizing that the guide was six years out of date I thought I should start again.

I reinstalled samba by first using these commands:

sudo apt-get purge samba
sudo apt-get install samba

But after reading my configuration file (/etc/samba/smb.conf) I noticed that it was the same file, containing the same edits I had made. I then proceeded to delete the directory and then re-install samba again.

However, the directory is not replaced after re-instillation and now I don't appear to have a configuration file. How do I get it back? Or install Samba correctly?

^{Yes, already posted in the comments as a verified solution, but posting as an answer anyway.}

Purging should indeed remove the configuration files as well, yet the configuration of the Samba server is tracked by the package samba-common, not samba. Yes, it's a bit confusing.

So, try purging and re-installing both packages like this:

sudo apt-get purge samba samba-common
sudo apt-get install samba

If you only need the smb.conf configuration file, there is no need to reinstall samba. The default copy can be found in /usr/share/samba/smb.conf. The following will copy it to /etc/samba/, replacing the file you've been editing:

sudo cp /usr/share/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/