Morning All,

We have had a couple of new PC’s/Laptops with Windows 7 on, they all log onto our domain ok but after a while ‘some’ of the shared drives hav a red X on them and you cannot connect, re-boot and it is fine.

It is sparodic and I cant figure out what the hell is going on.

I’ve searched on the net and it seems to be a known problem but cant find a fix.

The only thing I can think of is that our Domain controller is Server 2003, would this cause it, as in being very old compare to Windows 7?

Cheers for any help

When you double click on the drives do they reconnect?

yes sorry, even though they have red X it still connects, on one the shared shortcut to the drives on the desktop disappear?!

one solution was to turn off the ‘power down’ on the network card when not in use but that didnt help.

hang on ive just thought of something…

2 machines it happens on are all Dell.

The Dell PC tower has Windows 7 but doesnt have the Red X syndrome?

But two Dell laptops do? Hmmmmmm

same here

Win 7 has an auto disconnect feature.

If you juts want to fix your machine open up regedit and goto
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Service\lanmanworkstation\parameters

Create a new DWord called KeepConn and enter the value in seconds for timeout.

If it is only shares on a specific server that are having this problem there is also a server side fix.

There shouldn’t be any fundamental problems connecting W7 to a 2K3 domain, assuming you’re not using ‘Home’ versions of W7.

Make sure you’re using the latest drives for the network card – check Dell’s website.

2003 will shut down inactive network connections to save resources. It should reconnect immediately if you try and use the connection though. Is that what you’re seeing? Your two posts contradict each other here. (EDIT – simultaneous posts, this is the same thing Mossimus is talking about)

Googling, it seems there’s an obscure permissions issue sometimes. Have a look at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itpronetworking/thread/df17c593-e78f-4878-97b0-7569307934c5

(Note – I’m not suggesting this as a recommended fix, you’ll need to read the thread and see if you think it applies to you)

cheers all,

red x on both laptops, double click shortcut and it re-connects fine.

i’ll try that fix, i think its defo a time out isuse.