windows xp all drive letters mapped to same network share

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Clarification of Question by snapu-ga on 19 May 2005 19:13 PDT

I have 3 mapped drives when I log in.  After a certain amount of time
or when a certain process is run, then I go back to windows explorer
and see that all the drive letters are used and are mapped to one of
the normal shares that i'm mapped to.  Why/how would this happen?

What is the question?

I have 3 mapped drives when I log in.  After a certain amount of time
or when a certain process is run, then I go back to windows explorer
and see that all the drive letters are used and are mapped to one of
the normal shares that i'm mapped to.  Why/how would this happen?

I understood your question as follows, if my understanding is NOT
correct, please elaborate your question with some more details.

After successful login to your Windows XP machine, you find serveral
mapped drives which point to local drive. This mapping is done
automatically and you want to know which process or script is doing it
and how to find those culprits ?

What program are you running? Do you see that all A-Z drives are used?
You could be running some drive mapping software that would be running
at startup.

I would suggest you to review the startup programs. This may help.

I am running windows xp professional - logging into a windows 2000
domain server.  When I log in, I have the expected 3 drives mapped to
3 network shares - these are maps that I set up and expect to be
there.  After some activity, I find that the remainder of the drives
are mapped to one of the network shares that is already mapped.  This
is the incorrect behavior.

How can I tell what is running during startup.  The only issue is that
this doesn't necessarily happen during startup.  Are there any known
applications that would do this?

Dunno about the windows world but in the Netware mode, when a person
logs in he recieves what is called a "search" drive.  Ususally, that
drive is mapped as Z: and the Z: drive is added to the OS %PATH%
environment variable.  Other drives, based upon system or the user's
login script can also add drive letters similarly.  By default, the
next drive in the search path would be Y:.  X: would follow as would
W:

If the user logs into the Netware server again without 1) detaching
those map search drives and 2) NOT logging out of the _local_ OS, the
Z:, Y:, X: drives are not dismounted.  Upon running the system login
script, MORE drives are added starting with V:, U:, T:, etc.

This however doesn't fill up all your drive letters unless you repeat
this login procedure several times.

The only real way to do this in the Netware world is to right-click on
the Novell icon located in the system tray and click Netware Login.

The other thing to try is to see if you have a system wide or personal
login script (a batch file in the windows world if I'm correct) that
may be connecting all of these drives.

...just an outider's view...
Could this be something similar to what you're experiencing?

Actually there are many different languages you can run a login script
with in a windows environment, generally:

The user logs in to the active directory domain and gets authenticated.

The authenticated user is then pointed to a batch file which has 2
lines in it that point it to the script engine (VBScript, JScript,
etc.) and the location of the script to be loaded.

Now all users will have access to the location where the scripts are
kept, windows has several directories where it "copies" the scripts to
and gives all authenticated users access to the read only copies of
the scripts.

Your domain will provide any global settings that your deparment
needs, but it is possible to set additional scripts locally on the
machine.

Im assuming you are not the domain administrator?
And Im assuming there are other users on your network?

Alright, lets step through the things that we can verify.

Im on XP home edition right now so bare with me, I am working from
memory of XP Pro.

If you click on the Start button, then select "All Programs" and click
the "Startup" folder and see what programs might cause that sort of
behavior, my guess is theres nothing in there, but were going one step
at a time.

If you right click on your toolbar at the bottom of the screen and
select "Properties" and when the properties window pops up click
"customize" to view all the programs that are currently running in
your task bar (just my guess again but I dont think youll find
anything out of the ordinary)

If you have seen somthing unfamiliar you can google search the program
or reply on here and I will help you identify it.

Now click the "Start" button and select "Run" and type in "gpedit.msc"
 This will open your local Group Policy editor, since Im on XP home
edition I don't have a global policy (xp home cannot be joined to a
domain so it has no need for that function)

Inside the policy editor you will have to look for login script under
the various directories, If I remember correctly it is under the
system directory, but it's been a long time since i've had to use the
policy editor.

After you find the login script int eh policy double click on it and
verify there is no login script set in there, if there is try
disabling it (make sure you write down the script information before
deleting/disabling it incase you need it for other network functions)
then log off then log back on and see if that resolves your problem.

Without being in front of my network at work I can't try various
things to help you resolve this any further, and you will probably
need to contact a network administrator, or someone that has
sufficient privledges to check your profile for a login script.

If you do find that you have a login script that is in your network
profile, and need assistance looking through the code, or even
locating the read only version on your network jus tlet me know and I
can get you better answers when Im in front of my computer at work.

C