When booting into Windows, the OS sometimes does not reconnect mapped network drives even though the mapping is configured with the “Reconnect at sign-in” option. This is due to various timing constraints of resources during boot.

Although there are free Third Party software available that can automatically reconnect your mapped network drives, I would rather be able to do this using built-in tools than add more unnecessary software to my system. I’ve therefore written a Command Prompt batch script using the “NET USE” command which runs in Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (ver 1909).

The script is saved as a .CMD batch file which is executed twice by the Task Scheduler at user log on; one in non-admin and the other in admin mode (run in highest privilages). This allows a mapped drive to be visible to those applications running in non-admin and also to those applications running in admin modes. I also used the CMDKEY at the Command Prompt (not in a batch script) to add my network share credentials so that I didn’t have to add the credentials to the NET USE command. The CMDKEY format was:

cmdkey /add:192.168.49.69 /user:username /pass:password

The batch script is below. Note that this post is an update of a previous post which had some flaws.

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
SET me=%~n0
SET parent=%~dp0

TITLE Mapping network drive
@ECHO Please wait whilst we connect your drive
TIMEOUT /t 1 /NOBREAK >NUL

:Start
ECHO _____________________________________

IF EXIST D:\NUL (
    ECHO:
    ECHO D: drive is already mapped
    GOTO Endofscript
) ELSE (
    ECHO:
    ECHO D: drive does not exist
)

IF EXIST \\192.168.49.69\Data\ (
    ECHO:
    ECHO Network folder exists so run NET USE command
    NET USE D: \\192.168.49.69\Data /PERSISTENT:YES
) ELSE (
    ECHO:
    ECHO Network folder does not exist
    GoTo ErrorPrompt
)

IF "%ERRORLEVEL%" NEQ "0" (
    IF "%ERRORLEVEL%" NEQ "2" (
        ECHO:
        ECHO NET USE returncode has error and is %ERRORLEVEL%
        GOTO ErrorPrompt
    )
) ELSE (
    ECHO:
    ECHO NET USE returncode should be 0 and is %ERRORLEVEL%
)

REM catchall
GOTO Endofscript

:ErrorPrompt
ECHO _____________________________________
ECHO:
SET /P userinput="Errors were found. Do you wish to try again [Y/n] "
IF /I "%userinput%" EQU "y" GOTO Start
IF /I "%userinput%" EQU "" GOTO Start
IF /I "%userinput%" EQU "n" GOTO Endofscript
GOTO ErrorPrompt

:Endofscript
ECHO _____________________________________
ECHO:
@ECHO Please wait, script is closing.
TIMEOUT /t 5 /NOBREAK >NUL
ENDLOCAL
@ECHO OFF
@EXIT /B 0

I have an updated post at https://www.silentnomad.com/blog/2020/01/26/1885/

When booting into Windows, the OS sometimes does not reconnect mapped network drives even though the mapping is configured with the “Reconnect at sign-in” option. This is due with various timing constraints of resources during boot.

Although there are free Third Party software available that can automatically reconnect your mapped network drives, I would rather be able to do this using built-in tools than add more unnecessary software to my system. I’ve therefore written a Command Prompt script using the “net use” command. Not the prettiest of code but it does the job. Tested in Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

The script was saved as a .CMD batch file which is executed by twice using Task Scheduler at user log on; one in non-admin and the other in admin mode. This allows mapped drives to be visible to those applications running in non-admin and also to those applications running in admin modes.

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION
SET me=%~n0
SET parent=%~dp0
TITLE Mapping network drives
@ECHO Please wait whilst we reconnect your network drives.
SET neterror=0
SET counter=1
SET loopvalue=11
SET /A trueloop=%loopvalue%-1
:Start
ECHO _____________________________________
ECHO:
IF "%counter%" EQU "%loopvalue%" (
ECHO Connection to D: drive timed-out
SET neterror=1
GOTO End
)
ECHO Attempt %counter% of %trueloop% to D: drive
TIMEOUT /t 5 /NOBREAK >NUL
IF EXIST D:NUL (
ECHO Attempt %counter% successful.
GOTO End
)
NET USE D: \192.168.49.69Data /PERSISTENT:YES
IF "%ERRORLEVEL%" NEQ "0" IF "%ERRORLEVEL%" NEQ "85" (
SET /A counter=%counter%+1
GOTO Start
)
:End
IF "%neterror%" EQU "0" GOTO Endofscript
:userconfirm
ECHO _____________________________________
ECHO:
SET /P userinput="Errors were found. Do you wish to try again [Y/n] "
IF /I "%userinput%" EQU "y" GOTO Start
IF /I "%userinput%" EQU "" GOTO Start
IF /I "%userinput%" EQU "n" GOTO Endofscript
GOTO userconfirm
:Endofscript
ECHO _____________________________________
ECHO:
@ECHO Please wait, script is closing.
TIMEOUT /t 5 /NOBREAK >NUL
ENDLOCAL
@ECHO OFF
@EXIT /B 0