Why does my computer lose access to mapped drives after being locked?

Question

I am running Windows 7 on two computers connected via crossover ethernet cable. I lock both computers when I am going to be away for a while. When I unlock the left computer, the mapped network drive connecting it to the right computer is visible, but with a red X over it in My Computer. When I click on it, I get a message saying the network drive cannot be accessed and the network resource has not been restored. I have to disable the network adapter on both computers, re-enable network discovery, and re-enable the network adapters to get the drive to work again. I know the connection is still there because I can ping each computer from the other. The right computer never has its network connection disabled after being locked/unlocked. I've googled this with no relevant results, and I have no clue what could be causing this on one machine but not the other.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Are you sure it's the locking which is causing the problem here? I doubt it.

Check the power options on both PCs.

The default for Windows 7 is to sleep after 1 hour of inactivity.

You should disable automatic sleep altogether, otherwise you will always be plagued by sporadic shared resource availability issues. Of course, it's still fine if the screen powers off after a set time.