Ghosted Connections and Remote Access Service (115873)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows NT Server 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1
This article was previously published under Q115873

SUMMARY

'Ghosted' connection is the term used when the data structures used to map local drives and local printer ports to network resources are initialized but the actual connection to the server is not made. Typically ghosted connections show up in File Manager but are unavailable (grayed out). Choosing the drive icon causes the connection to be restored.

MORE INFORMATION

By default, Remote Access Service (RAS) does not restore previous network connections because restoring connections over a remote link can be very time consuming.

Ghosted connections may cause problems with applications that expect the physical connection to be there. For example, ghosted drives may not appear in Open or Save dialog boxes, or applications may be unable to find files.

To disable ghosted connections and force RAS to make the actual connections:

  1. In the Control Panel window, choose the Network icon.
  2. Select Remote Access Service.
  3. Clear the 'Disable automatic restoration of network connections at logon' check box.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/20/2003
Keywords:kbnetwork KB115873
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.