The share I am assuming is on one of the Win2k boxes.
You should not have to reboot. There is a settable parameter for the time the share lease will remain active on the Win2k box offering the share. You can use the group policy editor to make this very large.
But the problem sounds like something else. My gut instinct would be to formally create the share on the Win2k as a name shared resource, so that when you map to the share you use the Netbios name rather than the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) path to the share.
Even if your share lease expires, the first instance of using the share again should renew the lease. If not, then I would look at some more basic communications problems between the XP client and the Win2k server. I wrote a short time ago a lengthy piece about the difference betweeen XP as a client on Win2k Domains and a Win2k client. I invite you to see if the root of the problem is not in fact a DNS issue:
thread779-540080 article deals with logon issues, but the solution I feel strongly is the only one that in a mixed XP/Win2k Domain makes any sense. XP does not act in an identical fashion to Win2k as a Domain client. Clean this up and I hope your reboot issues go away. I cannot think of a reason why a reboot would be needed to solve a share problem. Something else is wrong.
Best.
Bill Castner