Mapped drives continue to show disconnected even after network reconnected

Hello all,

We have noticed on our Windows 8.1 build that the icon for mapped drives continues to show as disconnect with the red X even after the network connection has been re-established.

We are able to go back into the mapped drives, and manually refresh the "My computer" window to update the drive connection status and icons, however were expecting this to happen automatically once the network connection had been re-established.

Is there any way to have the My Computer explorer view refresh automatically when network connection has been re-established, or is there a command line we could use to trigger a refresh upon network reconnect?

Many th

July 9th, 2015 10:30am

As far as i know this is by design. What i mean is that windows booted up before the network was fully accessible.

Easy fix for us was to create a GPO to make sure the network was up. Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System/Logon > Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

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July 9th, 2015 1:12pm

As far as i know this is by design. What i mean is that windows booted up before the network was fully accessible.

Easy fix for us was to create a GPO to make sure the network was up. Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System/Logon > Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

July 9th, 2015 5:10pm

As far as i know this is by design. What i mean is that windows booted up before the network was fully accessible.

Easy fix for us was to create a GPO to make sure the network was up. Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System/Logon > Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 9th, 2015 5:10pm

As far as i know this is by design. What i mean is that windows booted up before the network was fully accessible.

Easy fix for us was to create a GPO to make sure the network was up. Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System/Logon > Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

July 9th, 2015 5:10pm

As far as i know this is by design. What i mean is that windows booted up before the network was fully accessible.

Easy fix for us was to create a GPO to make sure the network was up. Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System/Logon > Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 9th, 2015 5:10pm

As far as i know this is by design. What i mean is that windows booted up before the network was fully accessible.

Easy fix for us was to create a GPO to make sure the network was up. Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System/Logon > Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

Sorry, to be clear; This isn't when a machine is first starting up or logging on.

It's when a laptop is connected to the network through cable, taken away from the desk and then plugged into the network again elsewhere. The network connection is re-established but the drives continue to show as disconnected.

July 10th, 2015 7:58am

This is because there was a network interruption. People have been plague with this since the early days of Windows vista.


When you change the network windows detect interruption and flag the drives but it wont try to reconnect them unless some sort of mechanic is in place by you(script, GPO refresh and such). Just educate the users that even if they see the red X they can access the drive.

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July 10th, 2015 8:17am

This is because there was a network interruption. People have been plague with this since the early days of Windows vista.


When you change the network windows detect interruption and flag the drives but it wont try to reconnect them unless some sort of mechanic is in place by you(script, GPO refresh and such). Just educate the users that even if they see the red X they can access the drive.

Thank you for the information. So what would trigger a reconnect refresh other than the user clicking on the device itself?

Ideally we want to make the process automatic rather than relying on the users (who will just see a red X and call the helpdesk).

thanks.

July 13th, 2015 5:44am

The only way to make the red X go away is to initiate a check to the network drive. Could be a scrip as simple as doing a cd Drive letter. Could be a simple disconnect and reconnect. Unfortunately not many other ways to do so.
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July 13th, 2015 7:32am

The only way to make the red X go away is to initiate a check to the network drive. Could be a scrip as simple as doing a cd Drive letter. Could be a simple disconnect and reconnect. Unfortunately not many other ways to do so.

No joy on the command line cd to drive letter. I even managed to cd it and then do a dir to query the drive contents.. still no update on the icon!

I guess disconnect/reconnect would work however that seems a very clunky way of doing it if we have to remap all drives everytime the network reconnects.

July 13th, 2015 8:50am

This is the official Microsoft answer about the issue

the Shell32.dll file updates the network drive icon only in the details pane of Windows Explorer. An event is not generated to change the icon in the Folders area.

You could try to restart explorer that should remove the red X

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July 13th, 2015 10:34am

This is the official Microsoft answer about the issue

the Shell32.dll file updates the network drive icon only in the details pane of Windows Explorer. An event is not generated to change the icon in the Folders area.

You could try to restart explorer that should remove the red X

Thank you for your continued support.

That reply from Microsoft seems to be related to an earlier build of Vista for whick a hotfix was released to resolve: KB938062

The assumption would then be that this is already resolved in Windows 7/8/8.1?



July 15th, 2015 5:14am

Bump. Anyone else?
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July 21st, 2015 10:49am

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