We have Windows Server 2003 R2 with shared drives. We have Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista Ultimate workstations and have no problems with any of these machines.Drives are mapped using a Kixstart logon scriptWe have just installed 11 new Dell Optiplex 760 workstations with Windows 7 Professional pre-installed.Randomely on several of these machines,users are reporting that they lose connection to shared drives. A Red X is showing on all shared drives and double clicking on these does not work.The PC's are not idle at time of disconnect.Trying browse to drives using \\servername\share does not work.When the drives disconnect users can still access Internet and Exchange server for email which is also on the file server. Logging off and logging on again is also unsuccessful.The only way to get access to the shared drives is to restart the PC. Can anyone assistThanks in advance

Hi Wha59, I suspect this issue is a authentication issue. You can try to modify the authentication level to troubleshoot this issue: For detail steps and information: You may experience authentication issues when you access a network-attached storage device after you upgrade to Windows Server 2008, to Windows Vista, to Windows Server 2003, or to Windows XPHope it helps. Thanks.

Thanks forreplyThe link you provided states that it is not relevant to Windows 7.Also the fact that the computers connect to the shared drives and we can access files and folders but then disconnect for no apparent reason, doesnt seem topoint to aproblem with authentication.Also of the eleven workstations installed this problem only seems to occur in four of them so far. I will compare the authentication settings on the PC's that have no problem with the ones that disconnect but in the meantime any other suggestions would be appreciatedThanks

Thanks forreplyThe link you provided states that it is not relevant to Windows 7.Also the fact that the computers connect to the shared drives and we can access files and folders but then disconnect for no apparent reason, doesnt seem topoint to aproblem with authentication.Also of the eleven workstations installed this problem only seems to occur in four of them so far. I will compare the authentication settings on the PC's that have no problem with the ones that disconnect but in the meantime any other suggestions would be appreciatedThanks The KB should be also applied to Windows 7. You can troubleshoot this issue safely. In additon,I suspect this issue is authentication issue since not all Windows authentications are using one setting. it may be Kerberosor NTLM. Hope it helps.

Robinson - I am having this issue as well - and the KB does not apply to Windows 7 - specifically it calls for setting a registry entry that does not existin on Windows 7LMCompatibilityLevelDo you have any other KB's I can try?

I also am having this exact issue, was there any resolution? Thanks, Jonathon

In the driver properties for the NIC on the workstations on the power Management tab try disabling the option to allow Windows to turn off this device to save power. Some NIC drivers don't work properly with this option. If the Dell computers have Broadcom NICs try this http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?c=us&dl=false&l=en&s=gen&docid=395096AA3480EFFFE040A68F5B28437E&doclang=en&cs Note even if they don't have Broadcom NICs this is worth a try. Some Intel NICs have this problem as well. Kerry Brown MS-MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

Exact same issue here, I have already disabled all powersaving on NIC, to no avail...but good call Kerry, that has been screwing with me lately on other issues. Glad it's not just me LOL Reboot....get all mapped drives and have full access. At some point during the day the mapped drives stop responding. Opening "My Computer" at that point just hangs. Running the \\servername will not work. For some strange reason it isn't ALL the servers, it seems to affect my login server which has my home directory and departmental drive. Access to the other 3 servers seems to be okay. If I open a command prompt I can ping the server just fine, but if I try to change to the mapped drive on that server, it just locks up the command prompt and it will not close. If I try to change to a drive that doesn't exist it gives me the predictable "The system cannot find the drive specified" error and moves on. Also have the same issue when trying to reboot, computer just hangs saying "Logging off" and then nothing.... Right this second the "Net Use" command seems to be working fine and it shows ALL the drives, even the ones that I can't really access. This seems to be an old thread, has their been a "aahhhhhh there it is, THANK YOU moment" that I missed?

Is the NIC in the server or the workstation a Broadcom? Kerry Brown MS-MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

The NIC in the workstation with the issue is a Broadcom, but like I say I had already disabled all the power features...well...windows tells me it is turned off anyway..... as far as the server...nothing has changed on it, I never had trouble before the Windows 7 install and no one else is experiencing troubles and since I'm the only person right this second that has Windows 7.......I would like to assume that it has nothing to do with the server side. I am, however, about to be forced against my will, to install 7 on several labs and end user computers. They will be less than happy when they have to reboot to re-connect drives. I think of it as an annoyance, but they will never ever leave me alone about it, and think it is the end of the world. on a sidenote (something I suspected yesterday but wanted to verify) : The Net Use command in Windows 7 is flaky and doesn't return accurate data. For instance, I just booted my computer fresh this morning and have all the network drives listed in "my computer" and can access them all, but Net Use reports "There are no entries in the list." and yet when the drives were NOT available in "My Computer" yesterday it showed them all working and connected fine... lol stupid computers As I was typing this, for no apparent reason, I lost access to my mapped drives that are located on the domain server. All of the other drives are accessible if I run the servername...but not the domain server. "my computer" just locks up when I open it...net use still says no drives are there and I cannot change to the drives the way I could yesterday. The issue is so random and changes. I've gone from an XP system that once was up for over 74days to a Windows 7 system that needs to be rebooted every couple of hours to be effective. Today, or tomorrow I will wipe it out and re-install...just to rule out as much as I can.

Go into the Broadcom advanced control suite and disable TOE. You can also do this from an elevated command prompt. netsh int ip set chimney DISABLED Note that you may find a registry edit posted elsewhere to fix this. The registry edit doesn't work with Broadcom NICs. Generally with Broadcom and OS's greater than Vista or Server 2008 disabling TOE will fix a lot of problems. Kerry Brown MS-MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

LOL okay...first to update...today net use shows that I have no network drives, but "My Computer" shows 5 different network drives, 2 on my domain server that are currently unavailable but thankfully don't lock up my computer when I try to access them (today), the other three are working great from "my computer". I have no access to any of the network drives from a command prompt but again (today) it doesn't lock up my command prompt the way it has been in the past. next...I didn't have BACS installed...so I tried the command prompt first from an Administrator command prompt C:\>netsh netsh>int netsh interface>ip netsh interface ipv4>set The following commands are available: Commands inherited from the netsh context: set file - Copy the console output to a file. set machine - Sets the current machine on which to operate. set mode - Sets the current mode to online or offline. Commands in this context: set address - Sets the IP address or default gateway to an interface. set compartment - Modifies compartment configuration parameters. set dnsservers - Sets DNS server mode and addresses. set dynamicportrange - Modifies the range of ports used for dynamic port assignm ent. set global - Modifies global configuration general parameters. set interface - Modifies interface configuration parameters for IP. set neighbors - Sets a neighbor address. set route - Modifies route parameters. set subinterface - Modifies subinterface configuration parameters. set winsservers - Sets WINS server mode and addresses. netsh interface ipv4> If I just try to run it the way it is described in your post and various others I get this: C:\>netsh int ip set chimney disabled The following command was not found: int ip set chimney disabled. So I installed the BACS and from within there I did disable all Offload setings...We will see how it affects the system. Thanks for the info thus far. We normally never upgrade to a new OS until it has been out at least a year, and some we have skipped completely (vista). Circumstances being what they are we have to put some of them out early....by our standards.

I had this exact same issue. The fix for me was to disable Maintenance from running. I deployed the fix through group policy and it seems to have stopped my mapped drives/icons from removing. In group policy - Computer configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Troubleshooting and Diagnostics > Scheduled Maintenance Disable "Configure Schedule Maintenance and Behavior" This fixed the issue for me. Hope it works for you.

I gave it several days to see how this affected the system....honestly there was no change. Yesterday the drives actually dropped out twice during the day. I guess this is just a symptom of upgrading OS's before it is time. I wasn't cut out to be a beta tester. Usually after a year or two, all these problems have been discussed/hashed/patched/fixed or the programs that are having issues are upgraded to better suit the OS, and it is pretty stable. My record for uptime on my old XP box was 74 Days 17 hours 26 min 33 seconds. Same computer but with Win 7 made it 3 days once, but that was only because I wasn't here during the weekend and didn't actually neeeed the data on my networked drives LOL. Frankly, I look forward to hearing the complaints. This will only serve to justify my "lack of forward progress" and make them appreciate the fact that their data has been at hand without rebooting for years now because we totally skipped Vista. :) Thanks for your attempts. If you have any other ideas I'll gladly try them....but I think the key is probably just to wait on all my programs to be updated or replaced.

My mistake. That's the command for XP/Server 2003. Here's the proper syntax for Vista/Server 2008 and newer: netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled netsh interface tcp set global chimney=disabled netsh interface tcp set global rss=disabled To re-enable them: netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=normal netsh interface tcp set global chimney=enable netsh interface tcp set global rss=enable To see what the current settings are: netsh interface tcp show global I understand your pain but it is not the norm. I manage several networks with mixed XP, Vista, and Windows 7 clients. The networking stack on Vista and Windows 7 is very different from XP and can cause problems with older networks having incompatible equipment somewhere. That said I have yet to find an issue that couldn't be resolved. Broadcom NICs in particular cause a lot of problems. Make sure you have the latest driver. http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/downloaddrivers.php Also try the latest driver from the actual manufacturer of your particular NIC that uses the Broadcom chipset. Note that even though your XP clients are not experiencing a problem if the server has a Broadcom NIC you may need to disable TOE on the server as well before you will get consistent results with Vista/Windows 7 clients. I ran into this with several Dell servers with onboard Broadcom NICs when Vista was introduced to the network. The servers were running Server 2003. I had to update the Broadcom drivers and disable TOE. Disabling TOE on the clients only didn't fix the problem. I now routinely disable TOE on all Broadcom NICs whenever I see one no matter what OS. I've even gone as far as to install a different brand of NIC if the server has crucial shares on it. Whenever ordering a server I always specify a different brand now. http://www.bing.com/search?q=broadcom+server+disable+TOE What security software is installed on the workstation? I've seen 3rd party firewalls cause this. Kerry Brown MS-MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

I had this exact same issue. The fix for me was to disable Maintenance from running. I deployed the fix through group policy and it seems to have stopped my mapped drives/icons from removing. In group policy - Computer configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Troubleshooting and Diagnostics > Scheduled Maintenance Disable "Configure Schedule Maintenance and Behavior" This fixed the issue for me. Hope it works for you.

Okay....I will give it the weekend to be sure, but I think I found the program that isn't playing well with my networked drives (will update Monday) Today is the first day I haven't had to reboot to get to my network drives since I installed 7. I can access them all through "My Computer" I am going to put all the NIC settings back, reboot, and see how the weekend goes. Give me a good chance to see if it starts shutting down now. neither here nor there...but no one has commented on why the drives don't show up as networked at a command prompt....for that matter at a command prompt I cant even change to the drives anymore. HA...nevermind I just noticed that at a "privileged administrator command window" I have no access to network drives. It says no entries in the list, and cant even change to the drive letters. BUT....at a plain ole command prompt I can see them AND use them. Stupid computers....LOL

Knock, did it solve your problem? If so, wich program did you found that was causing this trouble? I'd like to know, I'm having the same issue for over a month now..

short answer: Yes.... long drawn out whining message with details: Administrative command prompt has no access to any of the network drives, anytime, and none of the drives show up using Net Use ......feature? I dunno... The regular command prompt seems to work okay..net use, and all drives there and stay. "My computer" will now keep the network drives, I can access them, AND it will log off when I tell it to and not hang up everytime. The solution for ME...was to un-install ZoneAlarm. I have actually gone 4 days now without rebooting, and have no problems. (four days isn't exactly the holy grail or anything...but it is much better than the twice a day I had become accustom too) Like I say, after a year or so these types of problems will probably just disappear because programs that are unwilling to admit that there is a problem, will upgrade, hardware will be replaced/upgraded with new drivers to match....and *poof* ,magic will fix the problems :) I wish you luck on your issue, but with so many varying solutions to the problem, I think the answer is going to be time, patience and luck....In my experience back when XP first came out, we had issues at first, drivers, programs, etc... Then it started working okay...then it passed through a rock solid phase. Then at the end it seemed to be giving me problems again. We skipped Vista altogether, so I have no opinion there. LOL Good luck with it

Did anyone figure this out. I am having the issue with the mapped drive but it isn't a dell. I have a computer with windows 7 and it won't stay connected to the drive that I need. It randomly comes in and out through out the day and won't stay connected. It works fine on all computers with XP and the server is a windows 2008 server. The drive flashes a red x and when I click on it, it says the drive is no longer available. I have tried everything posted with changing settings and still nothing.

I think there will be varying answers to this problem...... All mine was, was ZoneAlarm, I un-installed it, and now it works fine....maybe I'll give it a few months and try a different version. Good luck with it....

I found Kerry_Brown's posts on this subject set me on the proper path for my situation. I was having the issue of random disconnects to network mapped drives after upgrading to windows7. This was a home network and no servers involved, but Dell machines and the suspect machine had a Broadcom NetXtreme NIC and was running XP. Disabling the option to power down the NIC did not resolve the issue, but updating the driver from the Broadcom site did: http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/downloaddrivers.php . At the time of this writing, the most recent driver was dated May of 2010. After updating, my xcopy scripts that had been failing repeatedly after moving only a few files, ran straight through and copied over 6,000 files. The issue is resolved for me. The above site link as well as more about Broadcom NICs are in posts from Kerry. I didn't need to touch the registry, just update the driver. thanks for the help, all. mp

Hmmm, have the EXACT same problem as everyone here, but my Dell has an Intel GB chipset for the network. Its a Win7 PC, never used to do this, but last month or so, even right in the middle of the day, I get disconnected from my home server \users and \profiles. It sucks because all of a sudden you can't save documents safely. The drives still show as being there, but are 'unaccessible'. The only thing that fixes it is a complete restart. Its actually a huge pain--and feels like its getting worse. Really haven't changed anything recently.Curt Kessler Franklin Loan Center

What is the network card on the home server? That is the one that would likely need an update, not the Win7 PC.mp

It's an IBM Win 2003R2 server connecting to my Windows 7 Professional PC's. Nothing has changed on that end, and all the WinXP clients seem to be immune from the problem. I guess I can see if the server can be upgraded--its been in service a very long time.Curt Kessler Franklin Loan Center

The server doesn't need to be upgraded. Just the network card. ...that is if it is the same issue I was having. I just got the latest driver and updated the driver that the network card uses. Didn't even require a reboot. mpmp

Upgraded both my NIC driver on Win7 (just to be sure) and upgraded the broadcom driver to the latest release on the server a few days ago. Seemed to be doing okay, then just 5 minutes ago I lost all my mapped drives again to the server. I can remote desktop to the server, I can see some of the other shares, but my home directory is once again inaccessible. Can't connect no matter what. This is MADDENING!! NET USE U: reports my user drive is connected and mapped to my user directory, but trying to browse to it gives the 'drive is not accessible, must be connected to server' error, even though STATUS is OK. Anyone else have something to try? Rebooting on a corporate network is a very long tedious process! Thanks! /curtCurt Kessler Franklin Loan Center

AGH...NOT FIXED. This keeps happening again and again and again. Have replaced drivers everywhere, checked authentication, everything. It just randomly decides to disconnect and then block reconnect attempts. Has anyone anywhere found a solution that 'sticks'?Curt Kessler Franklin Loan Center

I can't offer anything else, sorry. Changing the Broadcom Driver on the Non-Windows 7 machine NIC provided a permanent solution for my situation. mpmp

Just a thought - I had a guy complaining that his new Windows 7 laptop kept losing it's mapped drives. Sure enough when you looked at his computer, all the drives where gone and shortucts to network drives did not work. If I rebooted the computer it all came back fine. Few days later same thing. I found an article that stated that you should access the Control Panel>Network amd Sharing Center>Advanced Sharing Center In here you will find 3 different network profiles, Home-Public-Domain In the Domain profile I changed all his settings to TURN ON. I haven't heard much of him since I did this. Not sure if this is the answer but it did help in my case. Jim Gaba

Lenovo Thinkpad with Win 7 is doing something similar. I've written a bat file to remap everything, but it's an aggravation to run it so often. Restarts don't work.