I have two Windows 7 machines connected to a router. I created a shared folder on machine A, and I can access it from machine B. The transfer speed is great.
However, there is sometimes a long initial delay when I try to access the shared folder from machine B. I'll click to open the folder, and windows explorer pauses for a few minutes before actually loading the contents of the folder. After it loads, however, I can navigate the subfolders and edit files with no noticeable delay. Then, some time later, I will get the huge delay on saving a file, after which subsequent saves have no delay.
What is the problem here, and how can I fix it?
Best Answer
Windows has a idle timeout for network drive connections; by default it's 15 minutes. So after 15 minutes of not using the share it will disconnect and the next time you go to use it you will have to wait for the connection to be made again (as well as any authentication processes that go along with it).
This really shouldn't take "minutes" to happen (maybe a couple seconds), but still this may be what you're running into.
You can see how long your idle timeout is set to by opening a command prompt and typing:
You can set the timeout limit (in minutes) as such:
You can turn off the idle timeout completely by entering:
See this MS KB article for more info.