Shopfloor PCs intermittently lose S: and ask for credentials while navigating
the identical UNC path in Explorer works fine. Four different causes produce
that same appearance - a persistent reconnect that raced the network, a stored
credential whose target string does not cover the name form in use, two
identities contending for one server, or a password that rotated - and each
needs a different fix. From the desk they are indistinguishable.
Test-ShareAccess.ps1 collects what separates them: reachability of both name
forms, the mappings and the account each remembers, the exact credential target
strings, Kerberos tickets, live SMB sessions and the identities holding them,
and the SMBClient/Connectivity log. Then it names the causes the evidence
supports rather than leaving a wall of output to interpret.
Read-only by construction: it maps nothing, deletes nothing, stores no
credential, and prints usernames and a password-present flag but never a
password, because its log lands where techs read it. Safe on a bay while
somebody is working.
It reports which identity it is running as, because mappings and SMB sessions
are per logon session: run as the user to explain S:, as SYSTEM to explain W:
and the backup scripts. A drive missing in one is genuinely absent in the
other, and mistaking that for a fault is easy.
Also derives the marker backup's share root from the script's own location
rather than a hardcoded UNC. GE-Enforce mounts the share as W: with SFLD
credentials, and reaching the same server by a different name than the mount
used costs a second authentication - or fails outright with 1219 - for reasons
the error text never mentions. The script's own path is the one handle
guaranteed to name the connection that already exists.
