Question : Slow Mapped Drives in XP Pro

I replaced a Win98 system with a WinXP Pro box in an 8 computer peer to peer network.  This new computer is the file server.  Now one of the other XP Pro comptuters (we'll call John) has a long delay when connecting to mapped drives on this server, and there was no delay at all when the Win98 box was in place.  When I click on a mapped drive on john's computer, it takes 20-45 seconds to connect the first time.  If I then close out that window and then immediately reconnect to the mapped drive, it goes much faster.  But if I wait 30-60 minutes to reconnect, it again has a long delay.  I don't understand why this happened when I changed Win98 to XP Pro.

Another symptom that may be a clue is that I couldn't share any files between John and the server unless I set up both user accounts on both computers.  I thought this wasn't necessary if simple file sharing was enabled, which it was.  Once I set up both user accounts on both computers, and disabled simple file sharing, and gave access to both users, I was able to share all files except any folder under Documents and Settings.  I get access denied whenever i try to access his folder, even though permission has been granted to both users for those folders.

So I guess I need help with two problems:   1- Slow access to mapped drives, and   2- Can't access any shared folders under Documents and Settings.

Any help is very much appreciated.

Answer : Slow Mapped Drives in XP Pro

http://cyberwizardpit.net/article2.htm
Here's a great tip to speed up your browsing of Windows 2000 & XP machines. Its actually a fix to a bug that by default of a normal Windows 2000 setup that scans shared files for Scheduled Tasks. And its turns out that you can experience a delay as long as 30 seconds when you try to view shared files across a network as Windows 2000 is using the extra time to search the Remote Computer for any Scheduled Tasks. Note that though the fix is originally intended for only those affected, Windows 2000 & XP users will experience that actual browsing speed of both the Internet & Windows Explorers improving significantly after applying it since it doesnt search for Scheduled Tasks anymore. Here's how :

Open up the Registry and go to :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/RemoteComputer/NameSpace

Under that branch, select the key :

{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

Right click it and select "Delete".







This is key that instructs Windows to search for Scheduled Tasks. If you like you may want to export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if necessary. This fix is so effective that it doesn't require a reboot and you can almost immediately determine yourself how much it speeds up your browsing processes.

Important

Note : This branch also exists in both Win98 & ME and Ive got so many mails asking me whether it's safe to apply the fix on it. However, I would like to warn users that the fix is intended only for Windows 2000 and XP. If you decide to try it for your Win98/ME system, pls make sure that you back up or export the exact branch so that you can restore the key if something should go wrong. Currently there are more than 20 users that have tried the fix in Win98/ME. Out of this 20, there are 4 users who reported that problems arises after removing the branch while the balance 16 reported great success.