Disconnected Network Drives

[jujubee]

I've had one Windows XP computer that for no apparent reason, likes to be disconnected to the network drives (in particular a shared 'textures' directory on startup. I've pecked around and tried a couple different 'solutions' in order to get it working but haven't been able to figure it out.

There's nothing like a dark bucket after watching all your passes pass you by...

Then I came across this handy utility today called 'Network Drive Manager' which may help some of you that may be experiencing these symptoms:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Network...-Manager.shtml

[Syclone1]

Tkx jujubee, Ive been having similar issues lately and will give that utility a try

-dave

[mike_kennedy]

This was a fix for me, install netbois under TCP/IP (Windows XP) and most of my issues went away....

[gafl]

Interesting thing;
Thank you !

Gael

[jujubee]

Hey thanks Mike. I thought Microsoft discontinued Netbios starting with win2k either because of some licensing issue or it introduces security holes. It's probably not that big of a deal anyways - glad to hear that solution works instead.

[lukx]

I had the same problems! grate!!!

[jujubee]

Ah - was getting it confused with Netbeui - going to give your solution a try today...

[jujubee]

Setting up Netbios to two of my machines didn't help at all. I think if you are behind a domain then this might make a difference in the disconnects.

I did come across this article which may or may not apply to Windows XP:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;297684

Alos, this command line syntax may help prevent network timeouts - -1 turning timeouts to off and 65,535 being the max in minutes:

net config server /autodisconnect:-1

[Dynedain]

If you can setup a windows server as a domain controller with all the wonderfull goodness of windows domains (note saracasm) the issues of disconnect and losing machines by network names goes away.

[mike_kennedy]

We are on a workgroup here, and we had this issue with our editing box, when we installed Netbois the problem went away...no guarentees in life or Microsoft unfortunately......

[jujubee]

Well - I'm rather networking ignorant - what do domains do?!? Manage multiple workgroups???

As I stated, NetBIOS did absolutely nothing. But the following command line syntax did:

net config server /autodisconnect:-1

[Dynedain]

windows domains are far more advanced than workgroups. They allow people to have network logins, so any login can work on multiple machines, network management, all kinds of wonderfull stuff that an MCSE can give you more info on.

[jujubee]

Just to add to this post - I still experienced the ocassional 'disconnected network drive' even after applying the command line switch. But I think I've found a solution

After talking with a friend whos a network admin, he recommended disabling NETBIOS under the advanced parameters and adding the IPs and computer names individually under the hosts file on every computer(c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\host).

[Dynedain]

Thats a pain, especially to keep updated.

[jujubee]

Editing the host files? I completely agree with you. But I much rather have that than having to buy windows 2003 server to keep my few comps under a domain.