How to Fix ‘Multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user’ Error

If you ever encountered problems with accessing your network shares and got message ‘Multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user’ while trying to do so, here is a solution how to fix it.

For some reason from time to time I experience mysterious errors with my shared network resources on Windows 7. I my case it is NAS device, but this actually doesn't change the main point it is mysterious and shouldn't happen at all. But since it does (and regarding to Microsoft's KB explanation I actually tend to bleieve they don't have a clue why is this happening, but anyway feel free to check out how they think it should be solved here) I needed a way to fix it. Since there could be several reasons why is this error popping up I'll mention two methods here which can help you out.

Method 1:

Go to Start -> Run (or just type in the search box) the following command:

       net use

This command should list all of your network shares. Sometimes it can happen you don't see a mapped drive  listed under Computer, but 'net use' will show it. If nothing was listed, you can freely skip to Method 2, as obvioulsy this method cannot help you. On the other hand if any of your problematic network shares got listed, type in following command:

       net use /delete \\servername\foldername

where of course '\\servername\foldername' should refer to yours displayed shared network source.
If you have more than one problematic share you might as well use command (but be warned it will DELETE ALL of your shares, so be careful if you don't want to delete all of them):

       net use * /delete

Now try to map or access your desired network share again. If this resolved you're problem great, if it didn't, try out Method 2.


Method 2:

1. Open the Services window (Start -> Run -> services.msc). You will need to type in 'services.msc' in search box or open it via Control Panel.
2. Locate the Workstation service (this is a fundamental service that windows uses to access network rescources) and once you found it (it should be at the bottom of the list obviously) stop this service. You'll probably get a notification how other services are dependent upon it (ie. Netlogon and Computer browser), so you'll have to stop displayed services as well.
3. Restart Workstation service and after this any other services that were listed as being dependent in the step above.

This should help you out with gaining control over your network shares again. If it didn't help you can try to access your shared network resources by using its IP address instead of names ie. don't use\\ laptop-pc\SharedFolder, instead try using \\192.168.1.100\SharedFolder (where 192.168.1.100 should refer to the real IP address of the resource you're connecting to).

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