Mapped network drive shows no drive letter or will not allow you to create new long-named files or folders

When you try to open a mapped network drive from your Microsoft Windows XP Professional-based client computer, you may find that there is no drive letter in the address bar. Or, when you try to create a file or folder by using a long name on a mapped network drive from your Windows XP-based client computer, you may receive the following error message: You cannot create the long-name file or folder on the mapped drive.

These issues may occur intermittently and do not occur on Microsoft Windows 2000-based client computers.

These problems may occur if you start Microsoft Windows Explorer before a logon script has completed.

Windows XP uses Fast Logon Optimization to process logons more quickly than previous operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows 2000. By default, Windows XP allows the logon to continue, even while Group Policy (including logon scripts) is still being processed.

To resolve this problem, turn off Fast Logon Optimization. To do this, enable the following policy on the Windows XP-based client computer: When this policy is enabled, a Windows XP-based client computer behaves in the same manner as a Windows 2000-based client computer at both system startup and at user logon.

Note A similar problem can be resolved if you enable the following policy: For additional information about a similar problem that has a different cause, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section of this article.

For additional information about the Windows XP Professional Fast Logon Optimization feature, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: