Mapped network drives ???

[Muse]

I'm running a LAN. I mapped a HD on one of my XP machines and it's always there in Windows Explorer on this, an XP machine, whether the originating machine is awake or not. I mapped a HD connected to another XP machine yesterday, and that machine is always on, but I don't see it in Windows Explorer, however a program I'm using sees the HD/data. WTF! Why in the world don't I see the mapped drive in Windows Explorer? What can I do to make MS Windows behave?

 

[GeekDrew]

So.... the program that's using the remote data -- does it think that it's using a drive letter, or a UNC path?

 

[Muse]

The program thinks it's using a drive letter. I've found that the problems come and go. It was livable before I had a HD crash on the "server" (XP) machine, mostly. I just got the machine set up again, this time using a USB HD instead of the boot HD for data (which cost me dearly when the HD crashed!). Will see how things work out. I figure things might be a ton more stable if I use WHS for the "server" OS, but the "server" machine is a laptop (Thinkpad T60), and I've heard that WHS doesn't really support that kind of thing. The laptop came with XP, so I'm trying to make it work rather than shell out $100 for WHS, and maybe a lot more if I find out that I need another hardware platform for the server. What I've got now is super low energy, only using around 12 watts idle.