This problem seems to be happening "roughly" daily, though I can not pinpoint what causes it or "when" exactly. I have a mapped drive on my Vista (home premium 32 bit)laptop that points at my PC. It is the Z drive, mapped using the current user to \\eric01\d\ This mapped drive will work fine until the "issue" occurs. At that point, I get an error mesage. I don't have the exact verbiage because the mapped drive is working at the moment. It is basicallysomething like"network location no longer exists". Once the issue occursI can still access the internet. I can still ping eric01, both by machine name AND by ip address. I can still use ping -a and the IP address and get the machine name, so it would not appear to be a resolution error. I can NOT access the remote pc using UNC (i.e. typing into a run prompt : \\eric01\d\). I get the same error. I CAN however access the remote machine using \\ipaddress\d\ , so it wouldn't appear to be a permission, firewallor connectivity issue. As far as I can tell this seems to happen after periods of inactivity, as opposed to happening when something specific happens. I'll basically use the computer in the morning, and it just won't be able to hit the remote PC, even though it was working the night before. Once the issue occurs: A) disconnecting / reconnecting the network connection (i'm using wireless) does not help B) explorer will hang up FOREVER and can not be killed by any means whatsoever C) Rebooting is the only way I've found to get the connection to \\eric01\ to work again D) Windows will hang up FOREVER while trying to restart, and I will have to hold down the power button to forcefully shut down the machine, then restart it. Please help.

The issue just happened again. This time less than an hour after rebooting. Here's the actual error message: Title: Open Folder Error message: \\eric01 is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. The specified network name is no longer available. I have another laptop using wireless (it is on XP Pro), and even when the Vista machine is having the issue, the XP laptop can connect to \\eric01 without issue.Safe to rule out the router?

Another clue...It happened again this morning. This time I also tried connecting to another laptop on the network, and was successful. So, I can connect to the "bad" laptop from the PC, I can connect to the good laptop from the bad laptop. I can connect to the pc from the bad laptop, but only by IP address, even though I can ping the good pc from the bad laptop by either IP or by machine name. This makes no sense. Any thoughts on this?

This is the exact problem we are having - we are trying a server fix listed in http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q297684we are trying the Registry Editor method but may have to step up to the command and stop autodisconnect.So far the Server 2003's are doing better but the Server 2000 doesn't seem to make any difference - I think agemay have something to do with the 2000. I will try connecting withthe ip address and see if that makes any difference. I don't know if this is a problem with Server 2008 but I havesome research to do before my servers canupgrade to 2008. Iagree with you that XP is no problem - never loses the drives. Thanks - if you come up with anything else let me know and I will keep you up on the changes we are making and how they work.

I looked at the registry method, but my machine does not have either key listed (my PC is Win 2k Professional, not sure if that matters). Therefore, I used the command line method. I'm rebooting both computers now, and I'll see how they do.

So far so good. I haven't had to reboot yet, and I can still access my PC using UNC. Thanks for the link!

Hi, This may be a DNS related issue. I suggest that you manually add the information of the Windows Server 2000 computer in the local DNS. 1. Browse to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories 2. Right click "Notepad" and select "Run as administrator" 3. Click "Continue" on the UAC prompt 4. Click File -> Open 5. Browse to "C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc" 6. Add the content with the following format. [IP address of the Windows 2000 computer] [computer name of the Windows 2000 computer] 7. Safe the change. 8. Also add the content into the file "lmhosts" If the issue is not resolved, please export the IP configuration information. 1. Run cmd. 2. Enter: ipconfig /all > %userprofile%\desktop\ipconfig.txt 3. Open ipconfig.txt on Desktop and paste the contents in your post. Also please capture network tracing for research. Run the following commands from an elevated CMD prompt (Run as administrator). When the issue does not occur, 1. Run cmd as administrator 2. Enter the following commands netsh ras set tracing * enable netsh wlan set tracing mode=yes 3. Launch the UNC drive 4. Enter the following commands netsh wlan set tracing mode=no (IMPORTANT: Wait for the command to return back to the command line. This may take several seconds.) netsh ras set tracing * disable Then, when the issue occurs, 1. Run cmd as administrator 2. Enter the following commands netsh ras set tracing * enable netsh wlan set tracing mode=yes 3. Launch the UNC drive. Wait for the process. 4. Enter the following commands netsh wlan set tracing mode=no (IMPORTANT: Wait for the command to return back to the command line. This may take several seconds.) netsh ras set tracing * disable The logs generated will be located in the %SystemRoot%\tracing directory. Please send the file to https://sftus.one.microsoft.com/choosetransfer.aspx?key=f78e8c43-dcd2-4e73-bede-b79eec77dc83 Password is ZgDt2-aQZL3QQ Hope it helps.

We ended up using the command line on the 2000 server - the registry entries didn't work - and so far so good. This is all a learning experience.

I have exactly the same problem with losing network shares. I've scoured these forums with limited sucess. I have Vista Home Premium on a peer to peer network with several XP machines. I have mapped drives with the XP PC nominated as the server. Usually the mapped drive would lose the share several times a day and only a reboot would reconnect.I could connect to other XP PC's on the network that were not mapped. I would get the "...you don't have permission..." or the "...name no longer available..." message from the mapped drive. My last attempt to fix this was to map the shared drives using IP addresses rather than the computer/sharename. For example \\10.1.1.20\Data seemed to give me a longer connection time before failing. The other pecular diference was that where maping using the computer name would fail so would browsing to that PC on the network, using IP the address still allows me to find the shared drive via browsingbut only using the share name not the IP address. However, using "net use \\10.1.1.20\Data" via the command prompt returns; "the specified network name is no longer available". The other peculiar thing is that I can re-map the drive using a newdrive letter and I can continue without a re-boot. If it wasn't for this I would bewiping Vista and going back to XP.However, I still have issues where I use the mapped drive in applications (Excel macros etc). I hope Microsoft is doing something to address this issue before I go completely nuts! Jim

Mr. Xie,I am experiencing exactly the same problem on my home network. I have two computers. 1. A desktop running Windows XP Media Center Edition2. A desktop running Windows Vista Home PremiumThe XP computer has two shared folders that the Vista machine has mapped. Sometimes the Vista machine can access the shared folders, but frequently it throws an error when I attempt to open one of the folders mapped on the XP machine. The problem is quite repeatable, as it happens nearly daily.When the problem happens, I can not close the Explorer window that was opened for the mapped folder nor can I perform a computer restart. The only solution is to power cycle the Vista computer.Unlike many people on the various blogs that I read, I actually like many aspects of Vista. But I view this as a serious issue that Microsoft should address promptly.If I can find time this weekend, I will perform the procedure described above and send the results.

I often see a lock up of Explorer when the shares fail and now have the desktop not responding or visible. Therefore Istill needto power off. Sometimes 3-4 fimes a day. The greatest irritation is the need to save open work (if I can still access it) and later transfer to the local drive.I to like a lot of things about Vista but this is almost unworkable. It may not be related, but the RacAgent stopped working in August after several Windows updates. It runs and logs the events but will not update the graph data. I've seen the same frustration across discussion boards as the network issue without resolution. I can't help thinking Microsoft released this half cooked! I'm close to ditching all the good new features in favour of workability. Jim

I don't know if you have any control over your servers or if not allowing disconnects will impact your performance but we ended up changing the disconnect time on our 2003 servers to the maximum in the registry. The registry changes did not work on our 2000 servers so we used the command line to turn autodisconnect off. You can look at this link to see if it will help your situation - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q297684 . I agree - Vista has some nice things but I'm not sure all the frustration with what doesn't work is worth it. I am getting really good at scheduling things around reboots - it has to be rebooted a lot! llp

Mr. Xie,I sent you a zip file containing the following the information you requested for purposes of diagnosing this issue. I'm hoping that I'll soon see a post from you indicating that there is a solution to this very serious and persistent problem.

Hi Norman, Your issue is not the same as the issue we discuss in this thread. I suggest that you create a new thread and we will focus on this issue in that new thread.

Good afternoon Mr. Xie and other posters for this issue.This is an issue that our company is suffering from as well. We migrated to Windows Vista Business in October of 2008 from Windows XP during a hardware refresh and are suffereing from the same problems that Eric is at the beginning of the post. We have attempted to utilize outside resources as well to troubleshoot this problem and still lose our network shares randomly on our Vista computers. This was never a problem with XP and have migrated most of staff back to their old computers until a permanent resolution can be had. I also am sending Mr. Xie a zip file of the tracing and configuration information so that hopefully a resolution can be obtained. Thank you for your time.

Hi Bob, Have you tried the suggestion above from llpfrustrated? If not, I suggest that you access the following website. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q297684 This issue occurs if the Windows Server disconnects the UNC after a specified time-out period. Follow the steps in the article could cancel the auto-disconnection. Since this thread was created long time ago, the Internet space that was used to collect information has already expired. If the issue persists, I suggest that you collect the network tracing log, and upload it in the SkyDrive of your Windows Live Space. Please upload it in the Public folder, set permission for us and give us the link. How to collect log ============ Note: The logs need to be collected before you start the connection setup. Execute the following from elevated command prompt on both computer(the one works and the one fails). 1. Run "netsh ras set tr * en" (without quotes). This enables logging. 2. Try to connect to the UNC and wait for the issue occurs. 3. Run "netsh ras set tr * di" (without quotes). This disables logging. This will generate log files in the %windir%\tracing directory. Additionally, please let us know what is the system of the server computer. Also please let us know if there is any error message when the issue occurs, and if not, whether Windows Explorer hangs such as the situation Eric encountered.Arthur Xie - MSFT