On Windows 95/98/ME you have mapped a network drive and define during the mapping:

to "reconnect at logon".
The mapped drive is shown in My Computer as Network drive:



Now, sometime later you restart/reboot your system, enter your Logon User-name and then get:

Your system tried to re-establish the network connection, but failed, most probably because the other system is NOT switched on (if the other system is switched on, then there is a problem on the network setup or cabling).
At this time, you want to select "Yes", so that your system keeps the definition of the mapped network drive (for your next restart/reboot).


Using Windows95: In My Computer, this Network drive is now shown as a broken network connection:


If you double-click on this broken Network drive and get:

then the other system is still NOT switched on, select "No" to avoid your system to try to establish a Dialup-Network connection.



Using Windows98SE: In My Computer, there is no indication that the Network drive was not reconnected.

When trying to use it and the system sharing the resource is still powered down, it will display the
error message: "The network path was not found"


But once the other system is up and running, double-clicking on the broken network-drive will establish now the network connection, display the network drive and change the icon to a working network drive:


If you like to avoid such broken (red cross) network drives, power up ALL systems, let them wait at the Logon-Screen until ALL systems show the Logon-Screen, then continue entering your Username.

to avoid the error message at start-up ( the "Permanent Connection not available"), you can configure in the Network-applet of the Control-panel in the Properties of the "Client for Microsoft Networks" to make a "Quick Logon": On restarting, Windows will still try to recreate the network mapping, but it will NOT display an error message if it can not create the drive mapping.. It will reconnect when you attempt to use the network drive.