Dead mapped drives causing slowness on home PC

livEwirE

Hi all,

I have a HTPC(Win8.1) under my TV and my desktop PC running Windows 8.0 upstairs. Both machines are hard wired over cat5 to my UPC router. On the desktop I have 2 mapped drives to the HTPC set to reconnect at logon. The HTPC is not always powered on. When this is the case the desktop drive connections are to dead network shares.

Here's the problem I'm having on the desktop.

I notice a slowness a lot when clicking on the Address drop-down in Explorer to change drives or the Open In / Save In dialog when opening and saving files. I assume this is because the PC is trying to browse all of the available drives.

Is there a way in windows to stop the OS from constantly trying to reconnect the mapped drives like this?

I read somewhere online that this is the best solution...

Don't use mapped folders. Portions of the OS treat them as if they were local. If you need to access network folders you can use "My Network Places" on XP or similar on Vista. Using the full UNC (\machine\share...) instead of mapping a drive letter can really help.

Is this the easiest solution? Any feedback appreciated

kippy

livEwirE wrote: »

Hi all,

I have a HTPC(Win8.1) under my TV and my desktop PC running Windows 8.0 upstairs. Both machines are hard wired over cat5 to my UPC router. On the desktop I have 2 mapped drives to the HTPC set to reconnect at logon. The HTPC is not always powered on. When this is the case the desktop drive connections are to dead network shares.

Here's the problem I'm having on the desktop.

I notice a slowness a lot when clicking on the Address drop-down in Explorer to change drives or the Open In / Save In dialog when opening and saving files. I assume this is because the PC is trying to browse all of the available drives.

Is there a way in windows to stop the OS from constantly trying to reconnect the mapped drives like this?

I read somewhere online that this is the best solution...

Don't use mapped folders. Portions of the OS treat them as if they were local. If you need to access network folders you can use "My Network Places" on XP or similar on Vista. Using the full UNC (\machine\share...) instead of mapping a drive letter can really help.

Is this the easiest solution? Any feedback appreciated

Just put a shortcut to the folder instead on the desktop.
EG, New- Shortcut - Location=\\HTPCname\foldername Name= Whatever you want to call it.

No need for the mapped drive at all and you wont have the same issues you are having with the mapped drive.

livEwirE

Thanks kippy that makes sense alright, will definitely give it a try cheers

kippy

livEwirE wrote: »

Thanks kippy that makes sense alright, will definitely give it a try cheers

I should add, make sure you disconnect the mapped drives as well.

livEwirE

Will do!