Consider the following scenario. You map a drive to a Windows XP-based computer from a Windows Vista-based computer. When you try to access the mapped drive from the Windows XP-based computer, you receive the following error message:

System error 5 has occurred.
Access is denied.

This problem occurs if the following conditions are true:

• Both computers are members of a workgroup.
• You do not give the Full Control shared permission to the Everyone group.
• You give the Full Control shared permission to the Administrators group.

Note: This access failure occurs regardless of the NTFS file system permissions that are assigned to the mapped drive.

In Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and in Windows Vista, Windows Internet Explorer 7 may not correctly recognize the zone to which a network resource belongs when you access the resource by using a mapped drive. Internet Explorer 7 recognizes the resource as a member of the “Internet” zone instead of as a member of one of the following zones:

• Local intranet
• Trusted sites

Therefore, when you try run a script that is on the network resource, you may receive a message that states that the file is not safe to run.

You experience this problem if a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) was used to map the network resource to a drive letter. The FQDN of a network resource takes the following form:

\\Computer.childdomain.domain.com\resource

In Windows Vista, a red “X” appears in the icon for a mapped network drive in Folders area of Windows Explorer. However, in the details pane, a green pipe appears in the icon for the same drive. Because you can successfully access the network drive, you expect the icon to appear as a green pipe in both areas.

This problem may occur if the following conditions are true:

• The network drive is mapped by using user credentials that differ from the credentials that were used to log on to Windows Vista.
• You do not select the Remember my password option when you map the network drive.
• You log off the computer. After you log on again, you double-click the network drive and then enter the credentials to reconnect to the drive.

After you restart Windows Explorer, the problem does not occur.

If you access an FTP site often, you may want to save time by ‘mapping a drive’ to it. Maximum PC Guides suggests that by using the ‘Map network drive’ function you can add a shortcut to your Computer window. Note that it does not assign a drive letter, it simply creates a shortcut with a name you choose. Keep reading →

You create a temporary, wireless, computer-to-computer network in Windows Vista. Additionally, you use double-byte character set (DBCS) characters in the Service Set Identifier (SSID) for the network name. However, the Network Map is not displayed correctly.