TC fails to connect to network drive with stored credentials

[Alexander B]

TC 7.50pb3, Windows XP or Windows 7 RC1.
Steps to reproduce the bug:
1. Create a network share on a remote machine (I encountered the problem with both Windows server && Linux + Samba), grant access to specific user only, but NOT to the user which runs TC on the local computer.
2. On the local computer, select "Network connections", an unused drive letter, the path to the share we've just created, select to connect using different credentials, select to reconnect at logon. Enter valid credentials - the new network drive will become accessible.
3. Reboot.
4. After reboot - DO NOT access the new drive with any other program except TC.
5. Try to access the drive in TC - it gives the error (drive not found) and prompts to select another drive.
6. Open the drive in Windows Explorer - it opens.
7. Open the drive in TC again - it opens too.
It seems that upon a first access to password-protected share after logon, Windows Explorer tells the system to look for stored credentials for that share, and TC does not.

[ghisler(Author)]

Sounds like a bug in Windows 7 - I don't have any such problems on older Windows versions. TC calls WNetAddConnection3 to restore connections. Maybe the function is faulty on Windows 7.

[Alexander B]

I encountered the same problem in Windows XP Professional SP3.
Just tested it with this OS again - everything is like described above, except in step 5 TC does not immediately give an error. Instead a dialog pops up asking to enter password for Guest account (username field is grayed out and cannot be changed). Because there is no guest access to the share, any password fails and after pressing Cancel TC gives an error.
Meanwhile, opening the same drive in Expolrer suceeds immediately without asking for a password. After that, TC can access the drive too.

[roentgen]

I didn't try in Win7 but I had this problem since I can remember.

[ghisler(Author)]

Total Commander cannot browse shares without a guest account. I have no idea how Explorer manages to do that...

[ghisler(Author)]

I have just tried to reproduce this problem with 2 Windows XP machines, but couldn't. The guest account was disabled on the target machine with the share. I followed steps 1-5 from the first post, but I had no problems accessing the drive in step 5 after the reboot...

[Alexander B]

Maybe it depends on some settings of local or remote machine. Unfortunately, I can't figure out what exactly matters in this case.

[ghisler(Author)]

Hmm, I used standard settings for the network on both machines.

Some questions:
1. After rebooting, how does Total Commander show the drive icon in the drive list or drive panel? Is it shown as a box with an inverse "T"-shaped line (=connected network drive) or is the a red 'x' over the inverse "T"? The 'x' signals that the connection has not been reconnected yet.

2. Was the remote machine running when you rebooted? If not, I get an annoying message from Windows that the connection couldn't be reconnected.

[Alexander B]

1. It shows a red "X" until the drive is opened in Explorer.
2. The remote machine was constantly running.

I can't guarantee that remote machine had "standard" settings, though. One machine I've tested was a corporate server (which I don't have administrative access to, so I don't know its settings), and another - Linux Samba server (which is surely not standard). Maybe I'll try to test it with another Windows machine when I will have time and opportunity.

[ghisler(Author)]

It shows a red "X"

That's great, this is a feature which I used a lot on Windows 2000 and miss very much on Windows XP! I don't remember how I enabled it on Windows 2000, and I can't find the option on XP.

Does anyone know how to enable this "delayed reconnect"? It would allow me to test the described problem...

[Boofo]

Does this help at all or am I way off on what you are wanting?

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/conversation.aspx?messageid=29767561&threadid=29767533

[sqa_wizard]

For Win2000 the network drives are not connected on startup but on first access:

Code: Select all

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\NetworkProvider]
"RestoreConnection"=dword:00000000

Accordingly a "1" will re-connect on startup immediately ...

[ghisler(Author)]

Great, that seems to work on XP too!

Unfortunately I still can't reproduce the error - TC reconnects to the share just fine when the button is clicked. The only problem is that the drive icon in the drive dropdown list isn't refreshed - this will be fixed in beta 4.

So about the above problem, what else could be different to a standard XP installation to cause this problem?