Win XP Home Cannot Reconnect to Mapped Drive

[Guest]

I have a server box running win 2000 server, and 4 PC's that run Win XP Home
that connect to a shared folder on that server.

3 of the PC's connect fine, with their drive mapping reconnecting properly
each time they are started-up. The 4th however, refuses to reconnect to the
mapped drive. I am always presented with the bubble message upon login. If I
open My Computer and click on the drive, the password entry box appears and I
can press OK and it will connect the drive.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between this PC and the other 3,
is that the 4th PC does have a Windows user password that the user logs in
with. The other 3 are not password protected. I tried adding a password
(different from the regular users password) to the users-list on the server,
and using the "login using a different name and password" when mapping the
drive, but still no luck. Does the user password on the server have to match
the client "windows" password?

Any suggestions to get this working would be greatly appreciated, and I will
provide more information if needed. Thanks.

 

[GTS]

In the case of XP HOME, yes. To automatically reconnect the username and
password must exactly match.

 

[Guest]

THANKS GTS!

I find that a bit odd that the Windows Login Password is the one that is
always "tried" when a WinXP Home system boots up and logs in (even when I
tried to tell the drive-mapping to use another), but I set the password on
the server to be the users login password and it worked. It appears the
problem is solved.

Because 3 other machines on my network are XP PRO machines (1 with a
password), that all work fine - I assume that PRO has a feature/set whereby
it doesn't automatically try its main login password first?

 

[GTS]

You're welcome. XP PRO can save credentials for mapped resources. HOME
can't (an irritating limitation) and will only automatically reconnect per
the Windows username and password matching a user account on the other
machine or as guest where permitted.

A net use command specifying a valid user name and password on the target
machine, which may differ from the HOME machine Windows logon, can
circumvent this with certain limitations. (I sometimes find this a useful
approach via batch files for clients with XP HOME when use of multiple
networks is an issue.)
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