Win98 and mapped drives

I am using a VPN between other locations and keep losing the mapping to a shared drive on another server. The connection stays on when accessing the shared drive directly from the NT4 server but drops off when using any PC (Win98se). The only way to re-map to the "shared drive" is to restart the win98se computer. Everything will work fine for a random time then becomes unavailable again. I upgraded one pc to WinXP Pro and the problem doesn't occur. Is there a setting on WIn98se I need to change to keep the connection? The firewall is a Cisco Pix.
Thanks,
****

 

Hi dhug. First off, there may not be a fix for Win9X. Even though 98 is more network aware than 95 was and SE is better than FE was, the reality is that networking was sorta grafted on to these machines and there are some perfectly legit things they just can't do. But there may be a fix with your setup.

First - a bit more information about your network.

- The servers obviously aren't all on the same network else you wouldn't need and couldn't use the router. But are they in the same domain? If so, NT4 classic or 2K AD domains?

- Why are you using VPN to connect if a router is in there and the network segments physically connected? It's not a design layout I'm familiar with.

- After a drive mapping goes away, can you still connect to the share either by mapping a different drive letter or by doing start~run and pointing to the share. For instance, if you had Z: mapped to \\remoteserver\someshare, would
start~run~\\remoteserver\someshare give you a connection?

- If you can't even point to it via start~run, does
net view someserver or net view \\someserver from a command window show you the available shares on the server?