No Mapped drive showing in Windows 8.1 Pro

Hi All:

Using Group Policy to map drives on a windows 2003 Server set as a domain controller. on some windows 8.1 pro machines I never get the drive mappings and on others I get the mappings but it take 5 minutes or so before they show up. No issues with windows 7 pro however. Any thoughts?

NFD12

Windows 8 has always had an issue when loading up file shares. It gets even worse with Windows 10.

broe23 said:

It gets even worse with Windows 10.

Click to expand...

Glad to know they've been hard at work fixing this issue in Win10.

The problem is that Microsoft is using an older form of Samba Code to handle the Network shares. Also if the folders are very large in how many files are in them. That can also take time.

What if you use FTP to look at the folders from a workstation? What router & switches manufacturer & models are you using? Is this over a Wired or Wireless Network?

broe23 said:

The problem is that Microsoft is using an older form of Samba Code to handle the Network shares. Also if the folders are very large in how many files are in them. That can also take time.

What if you use FTP to look at the folders from a workstation? What router & switches manufacturer & models are you using? Is this over a Wired or Wireless Network?

Click to expand...

Its not a *giant* issue for me, just a small nuisance when i've mapped a network share and every time I start my computers I get "Could not reconnect all network drives" and I have to connect them manually.

I use an Asus RT-AC87U, and my PC uses 867Mbps wireless AC, with my laptop connected via Gigabit ethernet to a Netgear R6300 which acts as a client to the main router, over 1100Mbps wireless AC, when I want to do anything besides basic web surfing with my laptop.

The network device is a WD My book live, also connected via gigabit to the above mentioned R6300.

How would you go about using FTP to do this sort of thing over a local network, and would it be more efficient/better than MS' solution, and potentially workable over the Internet (ie I can FTP into my desktop from my laptop when i'm away from home)

Cheers

You would need to set the My Book up to allow access from outside the LAN, along with setting up a Firewall rule on the router that is the Gateway. With your setup, you have a main router and a "Edge" router. You really only need one router. If the other can be turned into an Access Point to help extend wireless footprint, I would do that.

The problem is that the weakest link will always cause headaches. Which is always going to be the NAS. I get the same type of problem with the Lenova ix2 that I have. If I allow it to archive images from my security cameras, and the folder that I want to look at, has over 35gb of files. It takes forever before I can do anything on that share. Whether it is on my wife's Windows 8 laptop or mine running Xubuntu.

Budget end NAS's do not have enough horsepower when it comes to storing files on them. Especially when the workstation also has to index the files as it is loading up the folder from the network share.

Yeah, I have set up access outside LAN before but it is operated through WD's clunky web apps and it takes me 20 minutes to get connected to my NAS which is unideal.

The other/router is acting as a Wireless Client to the main router. IE instead of using its wireless antennae to *broadcast* a signal, it is using it to send a signal to the main router as if it was a wireless adaptor inside my laptop / inside the NAS. It basically enables me to have those devices connected by gigabit ethernet to the "other" router, which passes the data through to my main router. So it shouldn't be causing any more interference than a wireless adaptor that is physically inside the laptop / a USB adaptor.
Whew that got long.

Yeah I agree about it being a budget NAS... I only spent about $200 on it.

Anyway I partly solved my issue by utilising the VPN on my ASUS router. Now when connected to a network away from home I can VPN to my home router and Remote Desktop my desktop computer and access my network shares. Although I am limited by my home internet's 15Mbps upload speed, and of course whatever the download speed of the connection i'm using is.
Cheers