Save as problem with Save In drop down box

[Doug]

When I click on "Save as..." to save a worksheet in another location, then
click on the drop down arrow beside "Save in..." the save in line disappears
for about 3 minutes, then appears correctly. If I click the drop down arrow
again, it works OK.
This may be related to network drives. If I open Excel, then click the
"Open" icon and click the drop down arrow in "Look in" it can take up to 3
minutes to open the computer drive list.
Is there a "right" or "best" way to map network drives in XP Pro? I have
been clicking Tools/Map network drive, then typing in the UNC address.
Should I use My Network Places and right click the drive to assign a drive
letter?
Will all this resolve itself next week when I finally bring the Small
Business Server online and no longer use shared drives on XP Pro systems?

Regards

Doug

 

[Dave Peterson]

First, this is a guess and may not work. If I were you I'd ask your network
staff about it before doing it.

My bet is that the mapped drives "disappear" after a while. I think this is a
network "feature" that saves some sort of resources.

If you open windows explorer, you may see the mapped drives with a large red X
in front of them. But if you double click on one of them, the explorer window
shows whats there and the X disappears.

I'm guessing that when those drives disappear (or go inactive--or whatever the
technical term is), then it takes longer for that dialog to get refreshed.

You could either disconnect your mapped drives (or the infrequently used mapped
drives) and go through a shortcut to to the UNC path (or traverse my network).

Or (here's my real guess...)

There's a command you can give your system to not disconnect your drive ever (or
you can change the timing value).

net config server /autodisconnect:-1

(the -1 means never)

If you put this in your start up folder (or run this DOS command after
connecting to your network), it may work faster.


And one more thing...

Do you have any USB drives (thumb drives or USB Harddrives) connected to your
pc. They may be contributing to the problem, too.

Please post back with your results--but talk to the IT guys/gals before you try
anything you're not sure of.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Some additional thoughts...

First, I'm not sure if that "net config" command is persistent--you may have to
run it each time you restart your pc--maybe not. I seem to recall a registry
entry that did the same thing--but I don't recall enough to help--maybe google
can.

Second, before you try any of this junk, try opening windows explorer and
clicking on each mapped drive (to "wake them up"). Then open excel and do the
File|SaveAs. If it's quicker when the mapped drives are awake, then you may
want to pursue this idea.

If it's just as slow, then you probably wasted your time reading all this junk.

 

[Dave Peterson]

One more...

You may want to ask in one of the windows newsgroups (or a networking newsgroup)
if any of this looks like it works.