Windows 2003/Win9x Mapped Drive Issue

[sokignano]

Heres my problem, I'm running Windows 2003 as a fileserver for about 150 - 200 computers most of them WinXP and Win9x well the WinXP machines work fine with accessing shares and for mapped drives, but some of the Win9x machines will not keep a mapped drive, example:

I put in my username and password (which is no password) and It attempts to a drive a message pops up and says cannot be mapped would you like to try at startup next time. I say yes, then I right click on My Computer-Map Drive-\\server\folder and get Not availible. Then I double click on My Computer and put in the location manually in the address bar \\server\folder and it goes right to the folder on the server then I go try to remap the drive and it works. Then thinking everything is ok now, I restart the computer to make sure everything took. I hit enter at the Username/Password screen, I get the same message as before Cannot be mapped. Thats not the exact message but thas what is saying.

And the username has admin rights on the folder, and the computer. full controll.

Any help would be great. Thank you very much for your time.
Brian

[faulkner132]

Since Windows 9x computer can't be a part of a domain, they have trouble accessing shares on non-Windows 9x computers. Try enabling the Guest account on the file server and that should take care of it.

[glc]

Windows 9x computers certainly CAN be part of a domain. Open Networks in Control Panel, highlight Client for Microsoft Networks, select properties. Check the box for log into a NT domain, use just the domain name, not the full .com name. Set the primary login to Client for Microsoft Networks. Reboot. Log it in, then open Network Neighborhood. Browse to the share on the server you want to map, right click on it, map network drive. Check the box for reconnect on login.

I'm not that familiar with Server 2003, but you may have to enable some things - off the top of my head, allow legacy operating systems to log in (this may involve WINS), allow users with blank passwords to log in remotely (this may be worded restrict users with blank passwords to console login only, disable that).

I have a customer with a Win2000 Server with several Win98 boxes logging in with mapped drives no problem. However, they use a strict password policy, there are NO users with blank passwords. All drives are mapped with this procedure, there are no login scripts.

[faulkner132]

Originally Posted by glc Windows 9x computers certainly CAN be part of a domain. Open Networks in Control Panel, highlight Client for Microsoft Networks, select properties. Check the box for log into a NT domain, use just the domain name, not the full .com name. Set the primary login to Client for Microsoft Networks. Reboot. Log it in, then open Network Neighborhood. Browse to the share on the server you want to map, right click on it, map network drive. Check the box for reconnect on login.

I had no idea... thanks for the correction.

Of course I would recommend you upgrade the Win 9x machines to a supported OS as 9x is now a dead technology and it appears domain support is more of a "hack" rather than a supported feature.

Domains in 2003 work basically the same as domains on 2000 machines... at least on surface level.

[glc]

No, it is not a hack. NT domains precede Win9x by several years. When I went to NT school, we were using NT 3.51 Server and logging both Win 3.11 and Win95 machines into the domain. Nothing significant changed with NT 4.0 except the UI - 3.51 used the Win 3.x style program manager desktop and NT 4.0 switched to the Win95 style desktop with start menu. Win98 didn't change anything from Win95 as far as this capability goes.