Mapped Network Drive - tries to connect before wireless connection made

[Jeraden]

Using windows 7. I have a computer that has a wireless internet connection. I mapped a network drive. Everytime I boot up, I get an error that it was unable to reconnect the network drive, as it tries to make the drive connection before the wireless connection is established. So before I can use a program that accesses that mapped drive, I have to open windows explorer and manually reconnect to the network drive - otherwise programs just give an error that it can't find the path.

Is there any way to get it to work properly - like somehow delaying the drive mapping until after the wireless connection is established?

 

[imagoon]

Make the connection persistent so even if it fails, it is not deleted and will retry when accessed.

 

[corkyg]

Take a look at this and then try AUTORUNS.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

And here is another approach:

Run regedit.exe (* Warning do not edit your registry if you don't know what it is *)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet
\Control\NetworkProvider\
Set or create a DWORD
RestoreConnection = 0

restart - the mapped drive will not connect until you access it for the first time.

 

[Jeraden]

I have it as persistant, but the problem is, other programs just won't work when they try to access it. Once windows throws up the error that it couldn't connect to the drive at bootup, nothing works until I manually go in and reconnect. You'd think if a program tries to access drive P:, and the drive isn't connected, it would at least try to reconnect, but they never seem to.

I'll give the RestoreConnection registry setting a try tonight and see if that helps. When I googled that, I saw another article suggesting to just use the UNC path in programs instead of the drive letter, which might also be an option that I'll try if the RestoreConnection doesn't work.

Thanks!

 

[sivart]

Mine does the same thing, but on a wired connection and only on one Windows 7 computer, the others work fine. Still haven't found a solution and the same hardware didn't have the problem with Windows XP

 

[rudder]

corkyg's suggestion is good... but here are the steps to make the service that needs those drives not run until the network connection is made:

1.Backup your current registry settings.
2.Run 'regedit' to open your registry.
3.Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services and locate the service that you need to set a dependency for.
4.Open the 'DependOnService' key on the right side. If the selected service does not have a 'DependOnService' key, then create one by right-clicking and selecting New > Multi-String Value.
5.In the value field, enter the names of all services that the current service will depend on. Each service name must be entered properly and on a separate line.
6.Click OK, close your registry and restart your machine.

I have had to use this on wired ethernet connections as well sometimes.

 

[dondreak]

Make the connection persistent so even if it fails, it is not deleted and will retry when accessed.

Making it a persistent connection is not a good practice. If it's a laptop user and they travel or take their laptop home. If they are not connected to the domain there is a delay. It has to time out every character you type or every mouse click you make.

The best practice is to make a batch file to map the drives or a VBScript. Then have the end user click the batch file once they connect to VPN or if they are back in the office. Although if the domain admins know their job, they will have it auto map the drives when logging into the domain.

net use G: /delete
net use G: \\Server\Folder$\SubFolder

 

[Ketchup]

It's amazing that this thread is almost 6 years old, and Windows still does this. I have some mapped drives that are only available in the office or through a VPN connection, and even in Windows 10 this happens if I am out of the office. In my case, it's not really a big pain, as I don't even access these daily, but still, come on Microsoft! Give us some options in the GUI.

 

[PliotronX]

Have you tried disabling autodisconnect?

From command prompt:

net config server /autodisconnect:-1