Deleting mapped drives 2

[AndyGroom]

I'm using XP Home and I've got 5 mapped drives listed that I no longer use but I can't find any way to remove them from the list! Am I missing something really obvious? You can't right-click and do Delete, how do you get rid of them?


- Andy
___________________________________________________________________
If you think nobody cares you're alive, try missing a couple of mortgage payments

 

[carrr]

Go into regedit.
Navigate to the foloowing:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Network\Persistent Connections]
Remove the drive mappings as desired.

Tired of waiting for an answer? Try asking better questions. See: faq222-2244

 

[LloydSev]

Right click and select Disconnect

Computer/Network Technician
CCNA

 

[bcastner]

Always good to see you member carr.

Be a little careful here with those registry edits.
I still find it hard to believe that if you expand "My Computer" a right click then delete will not work.

 

[carrr]

Hola Bill,
I believe that he might be referring to the fact that Windows retains them in the "Map Network Drive" box within Explorer.
Perhaps I overread, but I trust that most professionals can handle a registry edit.

Tired of waiting for an answer? Try asking better questions. See: faq222-2244

 

[bcastner]

Let me expand my answer a bit:

There is a built in scanner that crawls/scans/searches the network and any share or printer discovered are added to My Network Places or Printers and Faxes.

The scanner is started in the following situations:
. At startup
. When opening My Network Places
. When refreshing My Network Places by pressing F5

The scanner is not started if one of the following conditions are true:
. If more than 10 computers are detected sharing folders (To be gentle on corporate networks)
. If using DUN or VPN connection
. If the scanner is disabled.

The scanner saves its findings here (If more than 7 days old then they are deleted)
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Explorer \Netcrawl \Shares]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Explorer \Netcrawl \Printers]

To disable the automatic scanning:
Open Control Panel
Double click Folder Options (Inside the grouping Appearance and Themes)
Select the View tab
In the Advanced Settings list untick Automatically search for network folders and printers
It is reflected with this DWORD value in the registry:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Explorer \Advanced]
NoNetCrawling = 1

My appreciation to "Snakefoot"

http://snakefoot.fateback.com/tweak/winnt/network.html

Just an excellent read and reference.

 

[carrr]

Now THAT is good info.

Tired of waiting for an answer? Try asking better questions. See: faq222-2244

 

[AndyGroom]

Hi Carrr,

Thanks for that, but the only entry in the registry branch that you specify is "SaveConnections=yes", there isn't a list of mapped drives.


- Andy
___________________________________________________________________
If you think nobody cares you're alive, try missing a couple of mortgage payments

 

[LloydSev]

so change "SaveConnections=No" and see what it does...

Computer/Network Technician
CCNA

 

[stduc]

Is My computer -> Tools -> Disconnect Network Drives - too obvious or am I missing something?

 

[LloydSev]

that's why I said "just right click it and select Disconnect", cuz there is no "delete" entry in XP for network drives..

but who knows, guess we are operating under the belief that they don't have the "disconnect" option.

Computer/Network Technician
CCNA

 

[AndyGroom]

The drives in question appear in My Computer, I just want to remove them from the list. Against their 'type' it already says "Disconnected network drive" because the machine they want to connect to no longer exists on the network. If I try to disconnect them they don't disappear from the list of drives.

It's not a big issue, it's just that it's so easy to map a new drive that I can't see why it's next to impossible to remove it!


- Andy
___________________________________________________________________
If you think nobody cares you're alive, try missing a couple of mortgage payments

 

[stduc]

Maybe its because the computer is not available. As Lloyd says - you just right click & select disconnect. I can't test that right now however.

 

[POLMafia]

This may be stupid, as I am not as well versed as I would like to be, but, If you have a script running that maps drives, you can delete all you want but when you log back on they come right back.

By default scripts are held in

%sys root%\SYSTEM32\GroupPolicy\User\scripts

of course if it was done with a MMC then it could have been saved anywhere

or it could have been done as a batch file in the startup folder

just a thought

 

[bcastner]

Have you tried deleting them through Network Neighborhood instead of My Computer?

Also, using Explorer, examine your \NetHood folder.
C:\Documents and Settings\username\NetHood

And for good measure:
C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\NetHood

 

[GwydionM]

On a related topic, is there a way to make the PC forget about a DVD drive that I no longer use because it got stuck? Disconnection is not an option it offers.

------------------------------
An old man who lives in the UK

 

[bcastner]

Play detective a little bit here.

The answer to removing the drive assignment is likely in either of these articles:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307844

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...rt/kb/articles/Q223/1/88.ASP&NoWebContent=1#2

 

[markdmac]

To get rid of the CD Rom, go into Device manager and disable the device.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[enjoy2004]

It is actually simple:

Like Carrr said, the value "SaveConnections" under key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Network\Persistent Connections]
defines whether connections are saved. The actual drive mapping can be found under [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Network] in a key that is named with the mapped drive letter (like "Z")
Please be careful when editing the registry...
As far as I know, only reconnecting the drive mapping to the same or a different resource and un-checking the 'remember this connection' checkbox will make XP forget the mapping.

Regards