Error When Accessing Shared Folder

Sometimes when I access a shared folder from my WinXP Pro PC on my two PC peer to peer network, I get the error message "The drive or network connection that the shortcut 'target.lnk' refers to is unavailable. Make sure that the disk is properly inserted or the network resource is available, and then try again." When I click Ok in the error message box, the shared folder is accessed without any problems, i.e. it was available. This has happened when the PC on which the shared folder is located has been a Win98SE PC and a Win2000 Pro PC. Why do I keep getting this error message and how can I stop it?

 

Hi skaickin
It's not looking promising. Though it doesn't address Windows 2000, it appears that this has been documented with no fix as of yet. See here.

 

Thanks Daizy. I'm actually using WinXp not Win2000 but the article doesn't state applicability to either. I can't follow the principle in the 'work around' given in the article as I have done away with the Shared Documents folders (couldn't see any use for them). It seems bizarre that no one else appears to have had this problem. I searched my PC for the target.lnk file but it doesn't exist. I guess it is generated 'on the fly'.

 

I don't think target.lnk ever really exists. This seems to be one of those error messages that speaks in generalities and is using 'target' to refer to whatever share you are trying to reach.

The 'work around' didn't make much sense to me either. Poorly written.

If you are using an XP/2K PC, are you logging on to both the 9X and the XP PCs with a username and non-blank password?

I think this is pretty much a pure networking issue so moving the thread there.

 

I can't remember the exact XP/98 configuration I had but with the present XP/2000 configuration, I have identical username and non-blank password on both PC's. However, this doesn't seem to me to be an access problem as I can access the remote share everytime. It is more the annoyance of having the apparently incorrect error message appear that I wish to deal with.

 

Hmmm.

The other possibility that comes to mind is a timing issue. A couple things that could fix the problem and at worst will just make things a little faster.

Set the speed and duplexing on both NICs to the fastest speed that both will use. Try 100Mbps full-duplex and if that won't work, back off to 10Mbps Half Duplex.

Put a hosts file on both PCs that has both devices and the loopback address specified.

127.0.0.1 localhost
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx PC-A's Name
yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy PC-B's Name

so (and substitute your IP addresses and PC names)

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.0.1 John
192.168.0.2 Fred

The file on 2K/XP machines goes in %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc