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multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more than one user name, are not allowed

August 20, 2006
Sometimes Windows networking really does my head in. Not only does it take up to a minute to connect to a network resource that is literally sitting one meter away, it also has annoying limitations such as the one listed in the title of this article.
 
I have seen this message before and usually disconnecting a network drive would do the trick. This time however the message would just not go away.
 
After a couple of minutes of Googling I found the solution in the following command:
net use * /delete

Category:

Computers and Internet

37 Comments

Comments on: "multiple connections to a server or shared resource by the same user, using more than one user name, are not allowed" (37)

  1. Calvin said:
    November 30, 2007 at 5:54 am

    Thank you very much nice guy,you saved my office…

  2. Unknown said:
    December 12, 2007 at 8:35 pm

    Thank you for this.  I hit this wall–between the Good Book Google and you my network issues are being resolved.  Thx!

  3. Brian said:
    January 29, 2008 at 3:10 pm

    Thanks, nice tip.

  4. Jenya said:
    January 30, 2008 at 6:41 pm

    Oh man, thank you so much!!!God bless you!!!

  5. Unknown said:
    March 17, 2008 at 1:26 pm

    Thanks very, very much for this simple but effective tip. I knew what area the problem was but I couldn\’t find the way to resolve it until I found this very easy solution.
    Regards,
    Ron

  6. Nathan said:
    May 20, 2008 at 10:08 pm

    Thanks! I was worried this might harm my computer. I don\’t like typing "delete" anywhere into the command line, but it just deleted the old connections. This command cleared everything up. It did what you said it would. Thanks again!

  7. Shubham said:
    June 26, 2008 at 8:26 am

    I have done the same thing but I am not able to access shared folders of my Win 2K3 server from a Win XP machine. Both machines are in same workgroup.Please help me out.

  8. Unknown said:
    July 29, 2008 at 9:49 pm

    I had about 10 connections, and only needed to delete one of them.  It was simple to do… like this…
     
    net use \\\\12.13.14.15\\directory /delete
     
    Thanks!
     
    – Scott

  9. Debbie said:
    August 6, 2008 at 12:30 pm

    Thanks…that was so easy…..worked perfectly for me!:-)deb

  10. Wade said:
    September 5, 2008 at 9:15 am

    Thanks,  it worked well 🙂

  11. Patrick said:
    November 16, 2008 at 5:46 am

     
    wow, strong…

  12. Matic said:
    December 5, 2008 at 10:36 pm

    Oh man, thank you so much!!! You just saved me a couple of hours searching for right answer!! Thanks a milion!

  13. Maxx said:
    January 3, 2009 at 10:33 pm

    Is it possible to add this to beginning of my startup script, so that is clears everything out before I map the drives? You need to press Y to continue, can that be automated?

  14. Kiattikorn said:
    March 17, 2009 at 9:24 am

    Thank you It worked well>>

  15. Dimitris said:
    June 10, 2009 at 9:27 am

    Create a .txt file and type in there..echo oncd\\.net use * /delete /YThat should work for you!

  16. Dimitris said:
    June 10, 2009 at 9:43 am

    Sorry I forgot to tell you that at the end you have to rename the file from .txt to .cmd and put it at start up!

  17. Jonathan said:
    July 26, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    Hi folks, how do I utilize this script? I\’ve never done one before, and it\’s driving me crazy.

  18. Unknown said:
    October 26, 2009 at 9:35 pm

    Thanks!! Worked great.

  19. Unknown said:
    December 28, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    Ditto everyone below. Thanks!To those who don\’t know how to use this (IE people like Jonathan Josh), here are some steps:1. Go to \’Start\’, then \’Run…\’2. In the \’Run\’ dialog box, type "cmd". This will bring up the command prompt.3. Inside the command prompt, type what was written above: "net use * /delete"4. It\’ll ask you if you wanna proceed; click yes. Doing so will wipe all mapped drives from your system, but getting them back is a fairly easy process. Much easier than trying to find a different solution to the "shared resource by same user" error.Thanks again!-K

  20. Irving said:
    July 12, 2011 at 1:48 pm

    The question is why? why? why? does this limitation exist. It’s certainly has never existed in Unix. The problem is that disconnecting a single drive doesn’t always work. Disconnecting all the connections does work, but this is not an acceptable solution, especially on a so-called server.

  21. mari said:
    July 19, 2011 at 11:41 am

    Thanks . Its working fine………….

  22. Abdullah said:
    July 31, 2011 at 4:25 pm

    Cool. Thanks a lot for your tip!

  23. diocio said:
    August 4, 2011 at 3:51 am

    Thank you very much…
    i need this information and it’s work !!!!!!

  24. PK said:
    August 11, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    Thanks…………………

  25. Jasina said:
    August 17, 2011 at 10:37 am

    thanks. good tip

  26. Gede said:
    August 21, 2011 at 4:10 am

    good article… thank you so much….

  27. Anonymous said:
    August 25, 2011 at 4:00 pm

    Totally helpful!!!

  28. grateful said:
    August 31, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    much appreciated

  29. Vlada said:
    September 20, 2011 at 7:43 am

    Thaaaank you!!!!!
    Greetings from Serbia!

  30. Foxvor said:
    October 24, 2011 at 8:27 am

    Don’t know what can I say that hasn’t been told yet but THANKS!!! It’s 2:00am, and I can finally move on in my installation.

  31. Raytheon said:
    October 26, 2011 at 7:16 am

    Thanks! This is helpful..

  32. Vinod said:
    January 18, 2012 at 5:58 am

    THanks a lot!!

  33. Unstumpped said:
    February 20, 2012 at 11:21 pm

    I was stumped by this error message for a while. In my case, I was logged in as a network domain user, but had an application that was authenticating a local user on the machine.

    All I needed to do was close a few Windows Explorer windows…which were displaying network drives…and the error went away. Thank you very much for sharing. Your posting saved me.

  34. shiz said:
    March 6, 2012 at 11:02 pm

    tried it on Windows 7 (input the command in cmd). got a confirmation message, but it doesn’t work; apparently it’s still the same user connected to the nas network and the same damn error message appears. tried the command again, and this time no entries were listed, but apparently that doesn’t reflect what’s actually the case

  35. shiz said:
    March 6, 2012 at 11:07 pm

    oh wait, something just happened. it looks like it finally logged into the account it was trying to log into before… wtf microsoft

  36. Sunil said:
    May 29, 2012 at 4:59 am

    You are a life saver….I spent couple of hours figuring this out without any luck and looks like this does the trick. Thanks again.

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