Ignore unavailable network drive

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I have a notebook pc running W2K SP3, and when I am at work I have to map a network drive on another computer as J: in order to run an application. But when I get home, Windows tries to find the network drive on startup. When it doesn’t find it, I have to dismiss the dialog box telling me that the network drive is unavailable. How can I make Windows simply accept that the network drive is not there, and just keep booting up? I mean, it’s not like I need to run this particular application at home…

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Do you login to a domain/active directory at work? If so, you could disconnect it and have a logon script which maps the network drive for you. That way it would only be mapped when you are at work.

Joe

--Joe

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Thanks Joe. In fact, it was even easier than that. When I boot the notebook at home, and it can’t find the network drive, it gives me the option of ‘reconnect at next logon’ or ‘ignore error message and keep booting’ (not exactly those words, naturally). Doh! Checking the ‘ignore’ box fixes the problem. However, I have another one now… From my notebook I mapped a drive on the desktop computer that it is networked with (W98SE, crossover cable, no hub). When I get to work, the notebook can’t find the network drive, but the dialog box that tells me this does not contain the second option of ‘ignore and continue’. What gives? At work I am connecting to a hub, and mostly W2K machines, but at home it is a simple crossover cable to a W98SE machine. Not a big deal, but I am interested nonetheless…

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At work do login to a domain/active directory? If so, then you can ignore the network stuff when not connected. However, the drive you mapped at home is on a peer-to-peer connection and is always expected to be there as Windows ‘knows’ it is not a network resource.

Joe

--Joe

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At work it is a simple workgroup, not a domain. But I was completely wrong with my post above. W2K always looks for the mapped drive on startup, regardless of where I am. I assume from your answer that this is because the peer-to-peer network is not regarded as a ‘network’ resource? However, I am sure that there is some way to get W2K to try to map the network drive, and if it fails to find it, to just continue to boot without telling me it can’t find the network drive and demanding I click ‘OK’. I don’t want to have to manually remap the network drive to a drive letter each time I get to work, but I also get sick of having to dismiss this dialog box during startup when I am not at the office. Anyway, thanks for your help

Andrew

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Adnrew, A peer-to-peer resource is a network resource. I don’t think there is anyway to keep the dialog box from showing if Win2k is trying to re-connect to a mapped drive that is not available. You could construct a couple of batch runstreams to do the mapping you want. Then just execute the one for the office when at work and the other when at home. Open a command window and type NET HELP SHARE | MORE for the command syntax.

Joe

--Joe

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Great idea. In fact, before I read your post I wrote a couple of batch files, one for home and one for work. The work one maps the needed network drive, and then launches the program that requires it. The home one does the same, but for a different program. Works a treat! So now I don’t need to manually map the drives to run these apps, but I don’t have to put up with a ‘can’t find network dialog box’ each time I startup. Thanks.

Andrew

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