Missing+H+Drives

From Mark Williams 9/10/09 In past emails, I’ve outlined an initial troubleshooting technique for resolving the missing drive mappings, i.e H: drive missing. To review, here are the steps:

1. Get to a command prompt by clicking on Start à Run à cmd 2. Type in “gpupdate /force” (without the quotes) 3. If prompted, reboot or reboot manually.
 * __Step One__**

In some cases, this does not resolve the problem or it only resolves it temporarily. After some investigation, I have a second step to try which seems to resolve the problem. This involves running windows update on the computer.

Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools à Windows Update. If you have upgraded to Internet Explorer 8, you click on Security à Windows Update. You may have to install some ActiveX controls (this is okay) and click on “Express”. If the computer hasn’t been updated in awhile, this process could take several minutes. After determining what updates are needed, you will get a list of updates. Click on the button to download and install the updates. The only update I would caution you to install is Internet Explorer 8. We’ve had varying success with this new browser and, if it were me, I would not install it just yet. There will be a dialog box which will give the option not to install it. Once all the updates are downloaded and installed, you will need to reboot. This usually corrects the problem although you may need to repeat step one outlined above.
 * __Step Two (if Step One does not work)__**

I encourage you and your users to perform a Windows update even if the first step worked for them.

We are implementing a server at the ESC which will automatically download your Windows updates and notify you with a yellow shield in the bottom right-hand corner of your desktop. You can click on it and install these updates. Some will require a reboot and some will not. It is important we keep our computers up to date to prevent malware and viruses which take advantage of Windows vulnerabilities.

Thank you for your patience in this matter. Once we are all updated, drive mappings and printer installations should perform more smoothly and, hopefully, fewer virus infections as well.