losing H drive in Windows NT environment

[Trekkie]

Hi,

We got Windows XP Pro w/sp1 in Windows NT w/sp6a environment. XP got all critical updates...but still loses occasionally loses the H drive. In TCP/IP settings advance settings, I have "enabled Netbios over TCP" and IP address of the Win server.

We got Win2k in our LAN and it does NOT loses H drive.

I appreciate any advice for this problem

Trekkie

 

[wolluf]

What is the H: drive? How is it mapped?

 

[bcastner]

If you mean the icon for the H: drive after a while shows a red X this is normal if the map to the drive exists but has been inactive for a period of time.

You can adjust on the machine creating the H: share the inactivity timeout for its shares, and you can adjust the same parameter with the policy editor for the XP machine.

But the map does not disappear. If you click on the red X'd map resource it will reset the timer and make it an active resource again.

 

[Trekkie]

H drive does not exist in Windows Explorer. And I use the batch script...NET USE H: /HOME

In the user profile, home directory is set to H: \\server\users$

Trekkie

 

[bcastner]

It is evident that the login batch file is not executing.
If the user properties in their profile is set to something like c:\winnt\sysvol\sysvol\scripts\login.bat than login.bat would be found under Win2K but not XP, as XP would look to its own C: directory and not finding the login.bat file would continue the login process.

Rename the login batch file to be executed without a path set in its properties.

 

[Trekkie]

Actually, the entire batch has something like this:

net use g: \\server\folder1
net use x: \\server\folder2

net use h: /home

I get g & x drives, while Home drive does not connect. This is a sporadic problem.

Thanks for any help.

Trekkie.

 

[bcastner]

You wrote:

In the user profile, home directory is set to H: \\server\users$

The dollar symbol makes the share hidden, but in XP the net use command will also fail if the user does not have administrator rights.

 

[wolluf]

Try commenting out 'net use h: /home' - you don't need it. If user manager on NT server has home directory set to H connected to \\server\users$, user will get H: drive mapped anyway (we've got this set up at school I support) - presuming user has permissions to both the users$ share and the underlying filestore security.

 

[Trekkie]

Thanks for all your inputs!

I'll try taking out the "net use H: /home" from the batch file.

Trekkie.

 

[Grover99]

I'm having a similar issue. XP clients, NT domain controllers--drive being mapped happens to be on a Snap server. Drive letter P: is mapped using Kix32 script to home directory as specified in user's account. Works OK at first, but after an unspecified time is disappears. Can go back and map drive (net use p: \\server\share$\directory) and it'll re-map, only to disappear again later!

 

[bcastner]

Grover99,

Configuring LAN autodisconnect. I have found this solves the problem.

Its possible to configure a timeout for LAN connections (as with the Remote Access Service) after which idle time the connection will be closed, if you then try and use it the connection will be reconnected.

By default this is 15 minutes however it can be changed by directly editing the registry:

Start the registry editor (regedit.exe) and move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters
Double click autodisconnect
Set to decimal and set the number of minutes (from -1 to 4294967295). Try 500 minutes which should be enough
Click OK, and close the registry editor
Reboot the machine

 

[Grover99]

bcastner--

Sorry to take a YEAR to get back to you--obviously this is merely an annoyance and not such a pressing issue. You mention that "if you try to use the connection it will be reconnected." From that, I'm assuming that in the scenario you describe there's still a drive letter showing in "My Computer"--in our instance, the drive letter completely disappears, and if you type the drive letter in the "Address" field of the Windows Explorer you get the same error as if you'd typed in a drive letter that you've never used before. If you type the UNC in the Address field, you can still access the resource, but you still don't get the drive letter back. The only way to get the drive letter back is to login again or issue a "net use" command--easy enough for tech folks, but confusing for the rest of our users. Other drives don't seem to be affected, so I think it may have something to do with the Snap! server...