network share connections increase past limits

[soscc]

i have a 4 pc peer to peer network. each pc maps a network g: drive to one of
the shares on the "server" pc, including the "server" pc. each pc is running
xp pro and sp2 plus the usual plethoria of after fixes and patches.

when the "server" first boots up and the other 3 pc's connect to it i see 4
shares in the list. a little while later i see it go to 5, then 6, etc up to
10 and then the peers start disconnecting. when i click on the mapped drive
on one of the peers i get an error message saying the "server" has no more
shares to give out. i'll even see this error on the "server" pc's mapped g:
drive.

when i look at the open files list it initially has the folder name in it
that's shared, and then the list clears and has no folder names in it, the
same for the sessions list, eventhough the shares list shows that there are
shares used.

i have replaced the nics, cables and switch, scanned for malware and
viruses, and the problem still occurs. how do i find out what is causing the
shares to be depleted? are there any utilities out there that will do a
better job of displaying the share, session and open file info?

thanks in advance...

 

[brusafnrn8]

My sugestion is try to format and install again your windows xp server.
If you have done format and install please tell m

 

[Malke]

i have a 4 pc peer to peer network. each pc maps a network g: drive to one
of the shares on the "server" pc, including the "server" pc. each pc is
running xp pro and sp2 plus the usual plethoria of after fixes and
patches.

when the "server" first boots up and the other 3 pc's connect to it i see
4 shares in the list. a little while later i see it go to 5, then 6, etc
up to 10 and then the peers start disconnecting. when i click on the
mapped drive on one of the peers i get an error message saying the
"server" has no more shares to give out. i'll even see this error on the
"server" pc's mapped g: drive.

when i look at the open files list it initially has the folder name in it
that's shared, and then the list clears and has no folder names in it, the
same for the sessions list, eventhough the shares list shows that there
are shares used.

i have replaced the nics, cables and switch, scanned for malware and
viruses, and the problem still occurs. how do i find out what is causing
the shares to be depleted? are there any utilities out there that will do
a better job of displaying the share, session and open file info?

You are bumping up against the inbound concurrent connections limitation.
This limitation is on *connections* and not *computers*. Replace the
pseudo-server with one running a real server operating system such as
Microsoft Small Business Server. If the pseudo-server is only used as a
file server and for backup (not hosting programs that only run on Windows),
you can run a Linux distro on it instead of Server. Linux is free and has
no inbound connection limitations.

Inbound connections limit in XP/Vista -
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314882

5 - XP Home/Vista Home Basic
10 - Vista Home Premium/Vista Ultimate/XP Pro
49 - SBS 2000
74 - SBS 2003
Unlimited for full Server O/Ses

Malke

 

[soscc]

the network configuration on these XP machines had been working for 2+ years
and then all of a sudden it started having issues. putting in a real win2k3
server is kind of overkill for the simple needs that the user has.

i'm just trying to figure out why all of a sudden my share counts are going
up without any of the peer computers starting up and shutting down.

the screwy thing is that the pc is seeing problems with the network share
back to itsself; ie the g: drive is mapped to a directory on the c: drive.

 

[Malke]

the network configuration on these XP machines had been working for 2+
years and then all of a sudden it started having issues. putting in a real
win2k3 server is kind of overkill for the simple needs that the user has.

i'm just trying to figure out why all of a sudden my share counts are
going up without any of the peer computers starting up and shutting down.

the screwy thing is that the pc is seeing problems with the network share
back to itsself; ie the g: drive is mapped to a directory on the c: drive.

There's no way for me to know why your shares are increasing since I can't
see your machines and your network. You might want to run some network
monitoring software to see what is taking up the shares and maybe not
releasing when you think it's disconnected.

Look at the Sysinternals site for free network monitoring software.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx

Otherwise, disable/disconnect all the shares and recreate them one at a
time, testing after each change.

Malke