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We've got numerous Windows 7 machines that will show a mapped network drive as disconnected on boot up. Seems to be all versions of Windows 7 as well. In the "My Computer" windows the mapped drive is visible, but with a RED X on it. If you double click on it, the red X goes away and displays the contents of that share. I don't believe it's a timeout issue (as mentioned in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297684) because this occurs imediately on startup.

EEAA
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JimDel
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  • This may sound silly, but has the network card properly initialised when you try to log on? If you leave it at the logon screen for a couple of minutes before logging on, does the message still appear when you eventually do log on? If you try to log on as a user who has never logged on to this particular machine, are you told there are no Domain Controllers available, does it log on almost instantly or is there a delay and then logon? – Ben Pilbrow Aug 02 '11 at 21:10
  • The drive will never reconnect on its own. Whether we wait a bit or not to logon. But as soon as we double click on it, it reconnect immediately. – JimDel Aug 02 '11 at 21:18
  • OK, how does the never logged on user behave? Also, are your NIC drivers up to date on the computers? – Ben Pilbrow Aug 02 '11 at 21:25
  • Drivers are up to date and We'll have to try with a "brand new" user. Multiple EXISTING users (on the same machine) all have the same issue though. We'll have to wait to test though. Thanks. – JimDel Aug 02 '11 at 21:30
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    The only reason I said a new user is to eliminate cached credentials being used if the network wasn't quite ready. A new user will force authentication with a DC, which should fail if the network isn't ready. Basically I'm just trying to determine if the NIC is really ready at logon or not. It could just be a crappy driver, crappy chipset or I might be barking up the wrong tree entirely! – Ben Pilbrow Aug 02 '11 at 21:36
  • Good points. But we've swapped out NIC as well. The users can imediatley browse the web for example on start-up, So i would assume the card is ready to go at that stage. While the Drive still has the "bang". – JimDel Aug 02 '11 at 21:44
  • It's worth noting that this behaviour is not new to Win 7. On some networks the same thing happens on XP. – John Gardeniers Aug 02 '11 at 22:10

3 Answers3

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This is a common issue with Windows 7, the best solution I've been able to find is to run a batch file that remaps the drive upon logging in.

net use [drive]: /delete
net use [drive]: \\server\share /user:[user] [password] /persistent:yes
John Straka
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  • This is how we got around this problem. We have a batch script that runs at login that maps the drive for them. Or you can even map a share to a drive through a GPO ( User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Drive Maps ) – Safado Aug 02 '11 at 21:45
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    This seems so unnecessary, but i agree that its the best solution. Thanks. – JimDel Aug 03 '11 at 14:22
  • I came here suspecting the solution would be to use a script for logging in, even though that doesn't particularly suit me as a single user machine (with a home NAS, a common setup I'm sure). It seems the "reconnect at logon" checkbox for mapped network drives has absolutely no intelligence whatsoever. – deed02392 May 12 '12 at 08:53
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It occurs because you're not connected to the mapped drive on boot up, under Windows 7 the drives only connect when you first access them.

Later on if you don't access them you can encounter the timeout issue.

All of our Win 7 machines exhibit this behaviour.

ITHedgeHog
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    The reason this is a problem for us is that when the user tries to run something on the Mapped drive, They get an error telling them there is no drive X: Other users with Windows 7 will have no RED X and no subsequent problems. – JimDel Aug 02 '11 at 21:13
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We have found that the more modern the hardware the more likely the problem. Often because the OS is up and running before the Network Card has fully initialised. We've had to generate scripts for pretty much all newer PC's.

On really fast PC's we've had to delay teh scripts by 30s to 60s to be certain the network card is fully active.

Chris
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