Cannot Connect to Windows NT Server with Many Shares

• Microsoft Windows 95
• Microsoft Windows 95 OEM Service Release version 2
• Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
• Microsoft Windows 95 OEM Service Release version 2.1

SYMPTOMS

You may experience problems connecting to a share on a Windows NT server from a Windows 95 workstation if the Windows NT server has a large number of shares.

Specific symptoms may include:

• When you attempt to make a UNC (Universal Naming Convention) connection to the share, you may receive the following error message:




The folder "\\server\share" does not exist.

• When you attempt to connect to the share in Windows NT Explorer, you may receive the following error message:




Access Denied

• In Microsoft Word version 7.0 for Windows 95, when you change the default document location to a folder on the server, the File Open operation does not work. The current folder reverts to the desktop or the root folder of drive C. This may occur whether the share on the server is accessed using a mapped drive letter or a UNC connection.



• While using shortcuts you cannot get to lower level directories on the Windows NT server. If you double click the shortcut - it connects to the servers share and displays folders, but when you double click the lower level folder all it does is refresh the upper level share points directories thus creating a shortcut loop.

CAUSE

In some scenarios, Windows 95 determines whether a share exists on an SMB server by getting the list of shares from the server, then searching for the specified share name in the data returned. The SMB protocol used to get the list of shares is limited to a total data size of 64K. If the list of shares is too large, not all names fit within the 64K data block. If the specified share is not included in the partial list returned, the operation does not work.

RESOLUTION

To work around this issue, use one or more of the following methods:

• Reduce the number of shares on the Windows NT server.



• Reduce the length of the share names on the server.



• Reduce the length of the comments on the shares.

   SHELL32.DLL  version 4.00.955  dated 9/30/96  817,664 bytes 

   SHELL32.DLL  version 4.00.1112  dated 9/25/97  819,200 bytes 

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Windows 95 and OEM Service Release 2 (OSR2). An update to address this problem is now available, but is not fully regression tested and should be applied only to computers experiencing this specific problem. Unless you are severely impacted by this specific problem, Microsoft does not recommend implementing this update at this time. Contact Microsoft Technical Support for additional information about the availability of this update.

This issue is resolved in Microsoft Windows 98.

MORE INFORMATION

This symptom is typically encountered if the number of shares on the Windows NT server exceeds 1,000 shares, or if the shares generally have long comment strings.

For additional information about related issues, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q160808 Profiles and Briefcase May Not Work with Windows NT Server

Q188206 Access Denied Connecting to Windows NT Server with Many Shares

Q161100 File May Be Truncated When Copied to a Full Network Drive

Q150215 Disabling Automatic Network Shortcut Resolution

Q138014 File May Be Truncated to Zero Bytes When Copied Onto Itself

Q136834 Error Copying Read-Only Files to Core SMB Server

Q161020 Implementing Windows 95 Updates

Additional query words: winnt refresh 1000 shares network path not found error 53

Keywords : kberrmsg kbnetwork osr2 winnt NTSrv
Version : WINDOWS:95; winnt:3.1,3.5,3.51,4.0
Platform : WINDOWS winnt
Issue type : kbprb