To whom it may concern,
Our office has about 25 computers with Windows XP Professional (SP3) that are being used as workstations. They are logging onto a domain on a Windows 2008 Server. All network card drivers and service packs for both server and workstations have been updated.
Recently, the workstations have been going “offline” at sporadic intervals–sometimes several times within the span of a minute, other times going fine for several hours before being disconnected. Whenever they go “offline”, the workstations lose access to the file server, all mapped network drives, and all Network printers, until a synchronization has been implemented. My co-workers and I are re-synchronizing several times every hour, which is annoying to say the least.
Is there any possible way to keep the connection always open so that the workstations aren’t constantly being disconnected? Is this a problem with Offline files and CSC, or is this a bigger problem (Server-workstation problem?) of which the going “offline” issue is but a symptom?
I’ve searched the web and the closest thing I came across was a post on this forum (http://forums.techguy.org/networking/551546-windows-xp-offline-files-thinks-2.html); however, the thread was already closed and the suggestions offered there (such as using the command “net config server /autodisconnect:-1” on the server) didn’t do anything to resolve our problem. The second closest thing I found was in a very old thread at Tek Tips (http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=438573) that suggested the problem might reside in the Server Message Block (SMB) signing between the server and workstations; however, that workaround (which was actually meant for Microsoft Windows Server 2000 and Windows XP SP1) didn’t help any either.
Thank you in advance for any information you can provide on this problem.
Sincerely,
L.F. Lee