When I logged in, my login script runs that mappes to few network directories. But if I check it later, I see red x marks on the mapping even if I click that mapping it connects me back. I did not experience this when I was using Windows95 system and I am set up with DHCP ip assigned. I am not sure why my mappings are lost after I logged in correctly.

WIndows NT/2000 will disconnect your mappings if you're not using them. But if you try to connect to them, they'll work or reconnect instantly. We had this happen at one of our accounts; they had NT 4 with 2k clients. Everything still worked, so that was the conclusion we came to.

Yes, I agree with the last contributor. I have a LAN where most PCs are Win95/95 but a couple have Win2K Pro(me included) and this problem of the apparent disconnection only occurs on Win2k but if you click on a mapped drive it opens fine. Something odd in Win2K.

I've heard that after 15 minutes of inactivity the drive mappings are lost and should reconnect when when you click on the drive. But, this inactivity setting should be changable I would think - to a half hour or an hour. Does anyone know if this is possible?

Some of our Win2K machines (but, oddly, not all of them) show red "X"'s after a period of time (15 minutes sounds about right) for drives mapped by an NT4 server's boot script. The red x's are confusing/annoying some of my users (just those with too much time on their hands... ha, ha!). Microsoft KnowledgeBase article Q138365 seems to tell the story. (LAN Autodisconnect feature is "undocumented".) My question is, "What's actually happening when the red X appears? Does it really make any difference in reducing network traffic or workstation CPU load?

Here the link I have found the following info on as stated below: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q138365 You can find the LAN Autodisconnect parameter in the registry under the subtree HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE under the subkey: \System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters The purpose is to disconnect idle sessions after a set number of minutes. The number of minutes can be set at a command prompt using the net config server command. For example, to set the Autodisconnect value to 30 minutes, you would run the following command line: net config server /autodisconnect:30 The valid value range is -1 to 65535 minutes at the command line. To disable Autodisconnect set it to -1. Setting Autodisconnect to 0 does not turn it off and results in very fast disconnects, within a few seconds of idle time. (However, the RAS Autodisconnect parameter is turned off if you set it to a value of 0.) NOTES : It is preferable to modify the LAN Autodisconnect directly in the registry. If you modify it at the command line, Windows NT and Windows 2000 may turn off its autotuning functions. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Q128167 Server Service Configuration and Tuning The valid value range if you edit the LAN Autodisconnect parameter in the registry is 0 to 4294967295 (Oxffffffff). For a Windows 2000 Server in a Domain, running either as a domain controller or as a server, the maximum value is 65,535 (0xffff). Values set above this will be returned to 0xffff after policy refresh. Windows 2000 Servers in a workgroup may be set to any value as indicated. If you configure the Autodisconnect option to -1 at the command prompt, Autodisconnect is set to the upper value in the registry. This is approximately 8,171 years (not tested), which should be long enough to be the equivalent of turning Autodisconnect off. The registry does not allow you to add a -1 value. However, that modification may be made at the command prompt with the following command: net config server /autodisconnect:-1 When this is set, two additional registry keys are added: anndelta: REG_DWORD: 0xbb8 announce: REG_DWORD: 0xf0 Announce : Specifies the network announce rate, in seconds. This rate determines how often the server is announced to other computers on the network. Anndelta : Specifies the delta value for the announce rate, in milliseconds. This value specifies how much the announce rate can vary from the period of time specified in the announce member. The delta value allows randomly varied announce rates. For example, if the announce member has the value 10 and the anndelta member has the value 1, the announce rate can vary from 9.999 seconds to 10.001 seconds. After a few minutes of idle time, your mapped drive or drives may be disconnected, and a red "X" may appear next to the mapped drives in Windows Explorer.