Problem with Windows 11 LabVIEW applications finding a mapped drive

[Coryman]

I have an application that has used this feature for more than 18 years with Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 10.  Now, with Windows 11, the application will not find and save the data to the mapped drive on a corporate server unless the entire drive is mapped into a configuration menu inside the LabVIEW application.  I know this must be a Windows problem.  Has anyone else experienced this? 

The way the application is designed, Only the 'Y:\' is required, but with this bug in Windows 11, the entire drive mapping is required.  This can't be only a LabVIEW issue.  Anyone else encounter this problem? 

[Andrey_Dmitriev]

Well, our world is changing continously, for example, I also can't access my very old NAS in Windows 11 (because of SMB, I guess).

Anyway, the first very obvious question is — are you able to access network drive in Windows Explorer at all from the target PC? If so, then  I would like to recommend to check error code returned from your used file I/O operations — may be this will tell you more about specific problem why you can't access.

[LLindenbauer]

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@Coryman wrote:

... unless the entire drive is mapped into a configuration menu inside the LabVIEW application.  ...

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I don't quite understand what that means, but I remember running into a similar issue once. As far as I am aware, connecting network drives on Windows is done on a per-user basis. I.e., your "net use" will look different depending on the user calling it. So, if you were running your LabVIEW executable in certain compatibility modes or with admin privileges, it might see different network drives. For debugging, you could try printing the output of "net use" from within your application and check if it does the thing you want it to.

[rolfk]

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@LLindenbauer wrote:

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@Coryman wrote:

... unless the entire drive is mapped into a configuration menu inside the LabVIEW application.  ...

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I don't quite understand what that means, but I remember running into a similar issue once. As far as I am aware, connecting network drives on Windows is done on a per-user basis. I.e., your "net use" will look different depending on the user calling it. So, if you were running your LabVIEW executable in certain compatibility modes or with admin privileges, it might see different network drives. For debugging, you could try printing the output of "net use" from within your application and check if it does the thing you want it to.

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There was/is an issue with different user accounts not seeing mounted network drives as Windows likes to isolate that since around Windows 8. This usually makes itself most apparent when you run some tool with elevation, which promotes it to admin. The admin account doesn't see your normal user account network drive letter. This can be resolved by adding a registry key "EnableLinkedConnections" under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.

There seems to be an additional issue under Windows 11 that looks similar. It could also be related to the complete removal of certain insecure SMB features in Windows 11.

[Coryman]

Yes, the mapped drive appears with no issues in Explorer.

[Coryman]

We have made both of those additions and the problem still exists.  I like the idea of checking the IO calls during the work session.  

[Kyle97330]

I made a translation VI that morphs any path with a mapped drive letter into its full path, using .NET nodes:

If it's not on a network drive it will return an unhelpful error and an incorrect path, but it should turn "X:\path\file.ext" into "\\servername\serverpath\path\file.ext" if the file passed in is on a mapped network drive.

I don't have Windows 11 to check if it works there or if this bypasses the mapped drive issue, though.

[cstrachn1]

Is this only with \\servername\ paths?

we are in the midst of moving all our code to 2024 on windows 11. IT forcing us to switch to windows 11.

But we use mapped network drives for data storage. test configuration. system setups etc.. we have not seen any issue with a mapped drives yet. i.e.. x:\somefolders\files. I dont think we use the \\servername\ file path anywhere.

[softball]

Hi

Specific to Windows 11 and SMB 1, then it is disabled by default. As already mentioned.

It is enabled by selecting the shown settings in Windows Features On/Off :

But then there is an additional issue with version 22H2 and SMB 1. Small KBytes files fails to transfer. Larger MBytes transfers fine. The easiest way to solve that issue is upgrading to 23H2. It can be quickly done by the Enablement Package KB5027397.

Regards

[cstrachn1]

I will keep this in mind as we transfer applications over to windows 11. Thank you for your response!