Win2K unknown/undocumented "Feature" 1

[cichlid]

I had to double check this wasn't posted before - so far I can't tell so here goes - this is a problem I have seen on various (our internal) systems and have noticed that others may be experiencing difficulties as well.
Win2K Pro machine with various network drives mapped to both NT4 machines and 2000 Server machines.
After a period of time (it varies) the connections appear with a red X against them as if disconnected - when you click on them it takes and extra few seconds to fire it back up but.... this especially causes havoc with MS Access DB's that are on network drives.
Has anyone else noticed or suffered this. At the minute it only causes me problems with MS Access but I'm sure it affects other things (even repsonse times)
Does anyone know of a way to get the OS to keep these connections up constantly - I've even tried /PERSISTENT YES without success.
Appreciate any help or others experience of this "Feature"

Cheers.
Seán.
cichlid000@hotmail.com

 

[Zelandakh]

I get this trouble too.

In certain apps it will kill the OS if you are running across the network.

I heard that if you change from the Microsoft driver for your card to the vendor specific one it cures the problem but I can't recall who told me and I have yet to test it myself.

I also heard (from an unreliable source) that it is down to problems with the hard disk... Hmm.

 

[dball63]

I think the OS was designed to do that. Disconnect after no use, then fire back up. I don't think using a differnt network card driver will change this though. I'm using a 3com driver on a desktop and xircom driver on laptop with same results. It hasn't caused me any troubles yet.

 

[cichlid]

From my own investigation I have found that it is known by microsoft - no one is sure if they are working on a fix though.
It appears to be a win2k pro feature - i guess no one tried it in the real world. I have tried contact microsoft but have still not had any replies, even after a couple of months.
If anyone knows another way of raising the issue with them other than microsoft.com please help - their site just isnt all that helpful.

Cheers.
Seán.
cichlid000@hotmail.com

 

[ShaithisDanoveur]

I believe what you're seeing here is the idle session timer kicking in. This timer is set by default at 15 minutes.

The problem with changing it is the user connection limit under Windows 2000 Professional and NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0 is 10 users.

At the 11th and subsequent connections you'll experience a lovely little error:

No more connections can be made to this remote computer at this time because there are already as many connections as the computer can accept.

If you're positive you aren't going to exceed this number of connections, change the idle session timer in the Local Security Policy section of the Administrative tools. It's under Local Policies, Security Options, and has a default value under Win2000 Pro of 15 minutes. Setting this to 0 disables autodisconnect. Be forewarned: Connections will stay alive FOREVER this way if they aren't disconnected by the user. Should fix the problem in small environments, but it'll cause problems in larger environments.

A single user can map multiple drives/printers/etc and count as one connection - but if there's also a service connecting to the same computer (but with a different user account) this will constitute 2 of the possible connections.

You can also set this via reged32/regedit, under
\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters

Create a dword value for autodisconnect and give it a value of Oxffffffff in hex.

You can ALSO do this via command line - but be forewarned, doing this other than via registry editor can turn off the automatic tuning features in NT.

On the command line, it's

Net Config Server /autodisconnect:time

where time is -1 to 65535 minutes. 0 on the command line does NOT turn off autodisconnect; instead setting it to disconnect after a very short interval. -1 sets it to disconnect after about 8171 years - effectively turning it off (the numeric value in mins is 4294967295).

Hope this helps

 

[cichlid]

Tried the registry key before - unsuccessful I'm afraid. I think this is just something that Windows 2000 does although I'm hoping there is some form of work around for it.

Cheers.
Seán.
cichlid000@hotmail.com

 

[ShaithisDanoveur]

Did it to a pair of Windows 2000 machines last night. The connection is still up, never dropped, zero activity across that connection.