Several months ago, I copied the household mp3 collection to a Buffalo Terra Station NAS (Raid 5 and plays nice with Windows, Macs, and Linux). On my Windows Me machine I can access individual networked files through most programs but a few throw fits unless I map the NAS drive (give it a logical letter) in windows explorer. If the drive is mapped I can examine any folder on the NAS with windows explorer and there's no problem. If, instead, I get to the NAS in windows explorer through “My Network Places” it seems to set off a flurry of network activity that bogs down explorer and, eventually, the entire computer (I can see the router activity lights from my desk).

I tried closing every background program except explorer and systray and it still happens. I did an anti-virus scan – I use Avast 4.8 – which didn't turn up anything. If this were Windows XP I might think it was making an index of the NAS drive (the two XP machines here don't behave like this though). Does anyone have an idea of what might be happening? Is this just something about networking that Microsoft had not figured out back in the day and just work around it?

Maybe you can use Wireshark to find out what it's doing.

Maybe you can use Wireshark to find out what it's doing.

Thanks. That's a good idea. To run Wireshark I'm going to need a working real network hub (fresh out) or an old computer with two ethernet cards (probably got). Might have to park this as a project for a rainy day.