Question

I have a primary and a backup windows 2008 server, and a bunch of windows XP clients that map a drive to a share on the primary server. If the primary server goes down, I want those client machines to automatically re-map their drive to the backup server, so they can continue to access the files.

Should I try to write a vbscript or python script or something that detects if the primary server is down and issues the appropriate “net use m: \server\share …” but I need that script to run every minute, no matter who is logged in. Can I do that with windows “scheduled tasks” ?

I’m a Unix guy, and could use any tips you have to offer on accomplishing this. Is there a better solution?

many thanks,
-Ian

Answer 1

That sounds like you need a client side solution then, unfortunately. Something along the lines of the following, in a .cmd file in each machine’s startup folder or otherwise placed so that upon failure to connect, this file is executed:

if not exist \\server1\sharename goto mapsecondserver 
net use z: \\server1\sharename 
goto end 

:mapsecondserver 
net use z: \\server2\sharename 
goto end 

:end