Hi All,I have 2 Windows 7 Professional sharing a network drive mapped from windows Server 2003. The problem I am facing now is that during a period of idle time (ie: 15 - 30 Mins), when I double click on the network drive, it will prompt me a message "Network drive is Inaccessible" and no matter how many times i have clicked, it will keep prompting me, after waiting for 20 seconds or more, I was able to access the network drive again. These happened on my two windows 7 machine but not on other windows xp machine. Can anyone help?Thanks in advance.

Hi, May I know if the computers are in a domain or a workgroup? Based on my research, I would like to suggest the following: 1. When the issue occurs, please check if you can ping the host of the shared folder with its IP Address or Host name and if you can access the share folders with UNC (\\computer\folder or \\IP Address\folder). 2. Boot one Windows 7 computer to Safe Mode with networking and see how it works. 3. Update the NIC driver on the computers. 4. If the computers are connecting to a router, please also upgrade the firmware of the router. Hope this helps. Thanks. Nicholas Li - MSFT

Check your power options in Control Panel. Maybe you have power saving mode enabled on the network cards?

HI All, Thanks for your prompt reply, it didn't work after removing the power savings mode, I realized that all windows 7 machine are having the same issue when i try to access file on the file server windows server 2003. After individual windows 7 machine are left untouch for 20 mins, the problem arises. Please advise. Thank you

Hi, I am having this issue with a new Win 7 install as well. Explorer will show the shares perfectly fine after awhile opening Explorer again will cause it to hang and I can't connect to any network drives. The only way to connect is via //ip/share from the RUN box. This issue does not exist in Vista or XP, all on the same network accessing the same NAS box.

I am experiencing the same issue and followed your steps, updating the NIC hardware drivers on the server and router firmware. I also checked if Windows was cutting power to the NIC to save energy, and it was not. I'm still having intermittent issues where some people on the network can access the shared drive and others cannot. I can ping the server by its IP from any client PC on the network, which is automatically assigned according to MAC address, but when I try to ping it by hostname \\CO-SERVER\, it does not work. After flushing DNS however, I can once again ping by hostname and map that shared drive on any given computer. Any ideas? Thanks in advance for your help, Dan dmatranga

I wanted to post an update to this issue. On another thread, I found a solution that (so far) seems to have worked: Start > begin typing Device Manager and click on Device Manager.View > Show hidden devicesExpand the section Network DevicesRight-click > Uninstall (be sure to check the box that says 'also delete driver'Click OKContinue doing this on all entries under Network Devices (some entries won't do anything when you click uninstall, not sure why, but it's all good as long as you click on each one and select Uninstall)Restart your computerLog in to Windows, and the computer should connect to Windows Update and download a compatible driver for each network device. The logic behind doing the above is that you install the most compatible Windows driver and reset all the settings for your NIC. If I encounter issues with accessing the network shared drive again, I'll re-post on this thread. If this solution worked for you, please leave a comment, thanks.dmatranga