Windows Vista Error Message : Exactly Right, Yet Competely Wrong

Ok, well maybe wrong is not the best word ... perhaps useless would be more accurate. This is yet another one of the myriad of cases where error messages displayed during normal software use are factually correct, yet contain absolutely no additional information on how to correct the situation. read: misleading and useless! Have you ever seen this one?

"The network folder specified is currently mapped using a different user name and password."

nice. gotta love it. And wow, I get an ok/cancel dialog which is also very helpful. I look at all my mounted drives and I don't have any other mapped network drives, only the network folder showing the NAS device in question. The full error message informs me that is a permissions issue. Now, for better or for worse, I am administrator on the NAS server I am trying to access, as well as on my laptop and both are part of the same domain.

The purpose of this rant? Only to document for my sake the fix:

- open a cmd prompt
- type "net use" at the prompt to view the list of open network resources
- type "net use (resource name) /delete"

This removes the network resource and then you can mount the resource as a network drive or otherwise browse to it as the correct user.

You know? I've said this before .... I wish i had a penny for every time bad software design compromises my productivity ... I might be able to buy Yahoo. *sigh*.