Symptom:
A mapped drive does not automatically connect at startup.
Solution:
If your customer is having the common issue with Windows where their mapped network drives do not reconnect at login there are a few easy ways to work around the issue. Both of these fixes revolve around using the Startup folder in Windows. You can open the startup folder by finding it in the Start menu and right clicking on it and select open.
- Creating a shortcut to the mapped drive.
- Right click inside the folder and select “Create Shortcut”
- Browse to the mapped drive you wish to run at startup.
- Hit next and then name it whatever you wish.
- Creating a shortcut that executes the ‘net’ command.
- Right click inside the folder and select “Create Shortcut”
- Put the following inside the input area “%windir%\system32\net.exe use X: \\COMPUTER NAME\SHARED FOLDER /persistent:yes”
- Put the name of the computer where it says COMPUTER NAME, the name of the shared folder where is says SHARED FOLDER and the drive letter you wish to map at X.
- So if you wished to map the M: drive to the Mitchell1 folder on the computer XPPro32bit you would type “M: \\XPPro32bit\Mitchell1 /persistent:yes”
The second option is generally the superior one as it is visually the least intrusive.