Windows 10 - Mapped network drives disappearing?

[destrekor]

Got an oddity here that is killing me:

This is an enterprise network, multiple sites. A user at one site has Windows 10 and is having this problem (mapped network drives will completely disappear, sometimes they disconnect, sometimes, poof, wheretheygo?).

But we have Windows 10 users at other sites, no problems. The DCs at all sites are running the same server (Win 2012.. oh, I will have to check if they are all on the same release version like R2 and the status of updates).

We haven't seen this reported elsewhere, and my boss has Windows 10 here and has never had this problem.

The group policies all check out, we've all checked and double checked.

Anyone have a clue as to what the culprit could be? I figure if policies aren't to blame then there has to be some fault at the DC local to the user, some config that wasn't perfectly mirrored to the other DCs.
This site was the most recent one to be spun up, so that aligns with my hunch, but I haven't been able to find anything yet.

Oh, and shoot, before anyone mentions the idea of it being a local hardware issue: this has occurred for this user on both a laptop and a desktop, both with Windows 10. And his network connection has checked out. Plus, if a mapped share gets disconnected, that's all that normally happens; I've never seen them completely disappear mid-session, or ever, come to think of it.

Especially as the policies in place map these connections wherever a user logs on. This user is in the correct OU and everything is mirrored across all OUs. I'm scratching my head, as are the Sys Admin, Net Admin, and IT Director.

 

[destrekor]

Oh, and because it could be this simple:

I have suggested to the admin that we should change the GPOs for drive mapping to "Update" instead of "Replace" - based on some discussion of this issue I've seen elsewhere, but there seems to be a little pushback, which I understand, because this could impact the entire network.

But that comes back to what still throws me off: you'd think this would be universal based on OS (as Windows 8 and above changed some things that some admins noted this change alleviates), but others with the same OS have not experienced this, and again, all the GPOs are mirrored, with the only changes for local addresses.

 

[destrekor]

Well no changes have been made to the GPOs as of yet... the admins are slow to try these kinds of things, which admittedly makes sense because it's only either one user specifically, or Windows 10 devices at one specific site.
Other Windows 10 devices, such as at my site, are not experience these issues.

It's mind-boggling and I can't wrap my head around it.

Anyone have any suggestions to look into?

I'm basically quarterbacking this and getting little to no feedback from the admins, which is starting to get on my nerves. So I want to try and make sure I have a very strong candidate, so I can tell the admins that, yes, you need to do this, or can I, because this is the fix we've been looking for these past few weeks and I'm tired of it, as is the user (who is well above all of our pay grades, mind you).

Sorry, just a little frustrated. I've scoured the web and come across numerous leads, but as I investigated further, they don't seem to be applicable. A major candidate was a specific Windows security patch (KB3159398, released in June, 2016) revolving around how GPOs authenticate, but... it looks like the vast majority of our entire domain has that installed already.

 

[bruceb]

Found something at this link that may be of help: (post from ColtsFanMN)

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1139165-windows-10-losing-mapped-drives

I had that problem with Win 7.. seems that MS in it's infinite wisdom decided that 'disconnecting' mapped drives if their resources weren't in use (had nothing to do with the workstation use), saved network traffic/load. I did try the command (via a batch file):

net config server /autodisconnect:-1

this did help in certain cases.. but not all. So I tried mapping drives in AD via a login script (not in GPO) using the following syntax as an example:

net use f: \\<servername>\<sharename> /persistent:yes

The /persistent:yes flag tells Windows to keep a persistent connection to the share, regardless. Since I have done that, the drives stay mapped always. I was not able to get this working via a GPO.. and I know it's preferred by most, but this was my solution.

 

[destrekor]

Found something at this link that may be of help: (post from ColtsFanMN)

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1139165-windows-10-losing-mapped-drives

I had that problem with Win 7.. seems that MS in it's infinite wisdom decided that 'disconnecting' mapped drives if their resources weren't in use (had nothing to do with the workstation use), saved network traffic/load. I did try the command (via a batch file):

net config server /autodisconnect:-1

this did help in certain cases.. but not all. So I tried mapping drives in AD via a login script (not in GPO) using the following syntax as an example:

net use f: \\<servername>\<sharename> /persistent:yes

The /persistent:yes flag tells Windows to keep a persistent connection to the share, regardless. Since I have done that, the drives stay mapped always. I was not able to get this working via a GPO.. and I know it's preferred by most, but this was my solution.

For the net config server, is that to be ran from the actual fileserver, or locally? I believe I ran that command on the user's desktop, and it didn't solve anything.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/297684
If I understand it right, it sounds like I'd have to change the default KeepConn setting in the registry on the client system.
Which could be the right answer, but I dislike stopgap measures if the problem is indicative of a larger issue residing elsewhere.

And yeah, I know I could easily solve this with a login script, in fact I created a simpler one for him that just ran gpupdate at login, which assures they are at least generated at login.
But: A) I hate hate hate login scripts; and B) it is considered bad practice (or at least, not best practice) to use them instead of GPOs.

And because it's a concern that he won't be the last one to experience this (his site is a very very very small team, most of the top executives and that's basically it), I really want a fix to be applied through group policy. I still fear and/or hopefully expect it's some weird issue specific to the site, some odd setting in the fileserver or something. All the GPOs otherwise match up for all sites. I went through the obvious settings in two fileservers (one on his site) and they look identical.

And what makes this so odd to me is it wasn't just one computer for this user, it was two separate computers. If it weren't for the fact that they are executives with hardly any time to set aside for IT, I'd have him sign onto a random Win7 machine to see if it follows him and thus demonstrate something is screwy with his profile or how the servers process access rights, or find out it remains only an issue on Windows 10, at least for him.

I'd love to deploy another Windows 10 device up there and have a different user logon to it, that would help test this theory. But that probably won't be happening unless someone gets a new replacement.