[Samba] Why some WinXP machines won't reconnect on reboot

[AndyLiebman at aol.com]

Hi Samba list. 

Here is my scenario. I have 10 Windows XP machines that use a Linux box as a 
file server. Running Mandrake 10 (more or less), 2.6, Samba 3.03. We have 
hundreds of individual shares defined -- but users only see their own shares (we 
use the "include=smb.%U.conf" setting in Global settings, and define the shares 
in individual conf files for each user.) 

When we use the "map network drive" function on our Windows XP clients, 
typically we select "reconnect at logon". 

When we reboot the Windows machines, SOME of the machines will automatically 
reconnect on every reboot. In other words, we can open an application on the 
Windows machine that wants to read a file from one of the Linux shares, and we 
can instantly open the files. 

But on some of the Windows machines, when we try to do what I have just 
described above, the network drive can't be found. We have to actually click on the 
share a couple of times in Explore or My Computer to force the reconnection. 
On the first click, we will get a message that says "Network resource can't be 
found. Maybe you don't have permission to access this resource" (or something 
like that). Then, on the next click,  we are logged on and we can access the 
share. 

Does anybody understand why we see this difference in behavior between the 
two Windows machines? Is there something I can configure on the Windows machines 
so this doesn't happen? 

Andy Liebman