Hi Everyone,

Having a strange problem with a server running Windows Server 2003 R2. The network shares appear to drop at random. After a restart, they are sometimes fine for minutes, sometimes fine for days. Eventually, the network shares are no longer accessible via UNC from any other machines. I try by IP, PC name, and FQDN.

I have tried the following:
- Disabling IEEE 802.11x Authentication on all NICs
- Uninstalling File and Printer Sharing for MS Networks, reinstalling. This appeared to resolve it for a few days, but the problem came back.

The server runs only SQL server and is a member of the domain. There are no errors or consistent messages in the event log around this time and there is nothing consistent (that I can trace) about when the issue occurs. During this time, I can ping the box, SQL Server continues to run, and I can RDP to the box. There do not appear to be any runaway processes or memory leaks.

One of the things I found was to review the idle timeout settings on mapped drives. Although the shares aren't mapped, I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. When running net config server /autodisconnect:-1 via Command Prompt, it works when the shares are working. When the shares are NOT working, I receive the following: "could not stop the server service"

Any suggestions on troubleshooting this? They've got a mission-critical application that depends on these shares. I'd be happy to provide any info necessary.

Thanks!