WinXP share needs to be "primed" before using

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

It is a small network - one each of WinXP Home, Win98SE, Win2K.

The WinXP machine has a folder shared and (to limit confusion) all three
machines map this share to the same letter.

The WinXP machine is fired up first and given time to get all the services
running (approx. 5 minutes). Using an application that expects to open a
file from this mapped drive upon launch, the mapped drive is unavailable.
Rather unusual since this machine is the one sharing the folder.

Bringing up Windows Explorer the mapped drive letter is found (without a red
"X") and the contents can be browsed.

Relaunching the application that choked earlier now works like a charm.

Moving on to the Win98 and Win2K workstations the same symptom exists - the
mapped drive's contents have to be browsed before the application can
successfully open a file on that drive.

All three machines are up-to-date with service packs and updates.

Any idea what is causing the symptom? Better yet, any idea on how to
eliminate the symptom?