I have a PC that was completely wiped, and a clean install was done with Win 7 x64.
While it was running XP SP3, there were no problems whatsoever, but now on Win 7 x64, I'm finding that remote machines become inaccessible by name after a short time of having them mapped.
For example, I have a drive permanently mapped to a server share. Upon boot, I can access it just fine. But within 1-5 hours, it becomes inaccessible. At that point, I cannot access that entire server at all by name. I can still access it by IP address, but not by name.
If I map a drive to a remote machine using its IP address (i.e. \\192.168.1.1\c$) and leave it running, after a while, I can't access this either. When this happens, I *can* still ping the remote machine by IP, but if I try to map another drive to it, I get the same error I'd normally get - "The specified network name is no longer available".
Rebooting allows me to access it once again, but like before - only for a short while.
If I try to access a network share of a different machine, I can do it on and off all day - meaning that if I map a drive to it, do my business, then disconnect the drive - I can usually go all day without problems. But if I leave the drive mapped, the same thing will happen to this machine as it does to the server.
My first suspect was my firewall application, but uninstalling it had no effect. However, I discovered that by uninstalling my AV software (Kaspersky), this problem is *mostly* fixed. The server drive stayed mapped and accessible all day without dropping. I thought the problem was fully fixed, but when I tried to map a drive to the other remote machine for the first time after the PC had been running for about 8-10 hours, it was inaccessible by name.
So, the AV software definitely affects the issue - but it may not be the sole source of it. I also tried installing a different AV app (Avast), and discovered the exact same problem as I had with Kaspersky AV, so it's not a specific app, it would appear, but something that AV apps do in general (or at least, these two). But again, this covers about 90% of the issue, not all of it.
While I was researching this issue, I came across this thread:
http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/29020-windows-7-network-share-dropout-problem.html
The symptoms of the problem were almost identical to mine, but a bad router seemed to be unlikely to be the source of my problem, since:
1. I don't use a router, but an unmanaged switch.
2. Even when the named access (or even IP named access) dies, I can still ping the IP of the machine.
3. Uninstalling the AV software had a significant impact on this issue.
*However*, that thread did give me an idea to test.
I wrote a script that copied and deleted a small text file to the server every ten minutes, to keep the connection alive. And it worked! Letting that script run keeps the machine accessible long after it normally would have become inaccessible (I once again, have Kaspersky installed). I'm thrilled to have this workaround, but obviously I'd like to get the root issue resolved.
So, to answer the obvious, yes I'm using the latest drivers for my NIC (Intel Pro/1000 PT), and yes they are (at least on paper) supposed to be fully compatible with Win 7 x64.
Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this issue and how I can fix it?
While it was running XP SP3, there were no problems whatsoever, but now on Win 7 x64, I'm finding that remote machines become inaccessible by name after a short time of having them mapped.
For example, I have a drive permanently mapped to a server share. Upon boot, I can access it just fine. But within 1-5 hours, it becomes inaccessible. At that point, I cannot access that entire server at all by name. I can still access it by IP address, but not by name.
If I map a drive to a remote machine using its IP address (i.e. \\192.168.1.1\c$) and leave it running, after a while, I can't access this either. When this happens, I *can* still ping the remote machine by IP, but if I try to map another drive to it, I get the same error I'd normally get - "The specified network name is no longer available".
Rebooting allows me to access it once again, but like before - only for a short while.
If I try to access a network share of a different machine, I can do it on and off all day - meaning that if I map a drive to it, do my business, then disconnect the drive - I can usually go all day without problems. But if I leave the drive mapped, the same thing will happen to this machine as it does to the server.
My first suspect was my firewall application, but uninstalling it had no effect. However, I discovered that by uninstalling my AV software (Kaspersky), this problem is *mostly* fixed. The server drive stayed mapped and accessible all day without dropping. I thought the problem was fully fixed, but when I tried to map a drive to the other remote machine for the first time after the PC had been running for about 8-10 hours, it was inaccessible by name.
So, the AV software definitely affects the issue - but it may not be the sole source of it. I also tried installing a different AV app (Avast), and discovered the exact same problem as I had with Kaspersky AV, so it's not a specific app, it would appear, but something that AV apps do in general (or at least, these two). But again, this covers about 90% of the issue, not all of it.
While I was researching this issue, I came across this thread:
http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/29020-windows-7-network-share-dropout-problem.html
The symptoms of the problem were almost identical to mine, but a bad router seemed to be unlikely to be the source of my problem, since:
1. I don't use a router, but an unmanaged switch.
2. Even when the named access (or even IP named access) dies, I can still ping the IP of the machine.
3. Uninstalling the AV software had a significant impact on this issue.
*However*, that thread did give me an idea to test.
I wrote a script that copied and deleted a small text file to the server every ten minutes, to keep the connection alive. And it worked! Letting that script run keeps the machine accessible long after it normally would have become inaccessible (I once again, have Kaspersky installed). I'm thrilled to have this workaround, but obviously I'd like to get the root issue resolved.
So, to answer the obvious, yes I'm using the latest drivers for my NIC (Intel Pro/1000 PT), and yes they are (at least on paper) supposed to be fully compatible with Win 7 x64.
Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this issue and how I can fix it?
Last edited:
My Computer
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Win 7 x64
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