How to Disable Unused Network Drive Connections in Windows XP
 

Sharing network drives is an additional capacity to a computer. It is very convenient to share files between computers by a network drive. Unused connections can cause serious problems on startup particularly when a remote computer or network drives don’t respond. It generally reads and waits for a signal to respond even if the drive is disconnected. This is one of many factors why PC’s slows down during startup. If a system has unused connections, you can start cutting and shaving off the startup load time and eventually improve performance by removing these useless connections. Without these inactive network connections, startup and file access should be faster.

To disconnect from a mapped network drive, here's how:

1.Open My Computer.
2.From the Tools menu, click Disconnect Network Drive.
3.Then select the network drives that are useless and you no longer use. Then click OK.