One day I noticed my network shares showing as disconnected and I chalked it up to quirks in the version of Windows 8.1 I am using. I can browse the network shares just fine, so nothing was broken, but after awhile it started to bother me. After searching around I found there can be many causes, some dating back it issues with Windows NT. It wasn't until I tried the net use command that I realized something was wrong with my system:
This was actually the smoking gun that helped me realize the issue WAS client side and gave me a few places to look. In this particular case it was the network provider order. Under Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections press ALT and go to advanced then advanced settings, then Provider Order tab. Here an NFS client driver was taken precedence over the windows network:
I simply moved NFS down to below Microsoft Windows Network and the network shares instantly no longer showed as disconnected, no need to reboot.
