Drives Show Disconnected
When browsing the file system, File Explorer may show the message "Disconnected Network Drive" instead of the drive name. Even though the drive shows the "disconnected" message, it can still be browsed and files can be opened and saved to it successfully. The problem is visual only.
There are two possible causes of the issue which are outlined below.
Missing Network Provider DLL
To check if the required DLL is installed and registered perform the following steps. Download the Autoruns tool (Autoruns is a Microsoft tool) run it and click the Network Providers tab.
Validate the entry cbfs22 is present as per the screenshot below. New versions of Zee Drive (v67.1 and greater) the entry will be cbfs24.
And validate that this DLL is present in the system32 folder:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\cbfsShellHelper22.dll
Note that on new versions of Zee Drive the DLL is called cbfsShellHelper24.dll
If the DLL is not found in the system32 folder or the cbfs22 entry is not found in the Network Providers tab then do the following:
Open a CMD command prompt as local administrator.
Run this command (replace [YOUR ZEE DRIVE VERSION] with the version number of Zee Drive that is running):
"C:\Program Files\Thinkscape Zee Drive[YOUR ZEE DRIVE VERSION]\ZeeDrive.exe" Command=UninstallDriver
Then double click Zeedrive.exe and navigate to the log files. Check the latest but one log file (i.e. the log file just before *latest*). It should show the results of running the UninstallDriver command.
If the UninstallDriver command was successful, try activating Zee Drive again.
After activating Zee Drive, check the *latest* log file to see if there is a “Installing driver” entry in the log which will indicate the driver has been re-installed.
Now check Autoruns again and the "Network Providers" tab to see if the DLL is now present.
Windows 11 ARM 64 And Office 64 Bit Incompatibility
On Windows 11 devices running on an ARM 64 processor, Zee Drive network drives may show as disconnected when browsing the file system from Office 64 bit (Word, Excel, Outlook etc.).
The cause of the problem is a compatibility issue between the Office processes running in x64 compatible mode, and a Zee Drive DLL in c:\Windows\System32 folder that is for ARM 64. Office will fail to load the ARM 64 DLL which is used for the correct display of the network drives.
The issue can be resolved by installing the 32 bit version of Office on Windows 11 ARM 64. To do this, first uninstall 64 bit Office from the computer. Then, download the 32 bit Office installer to the local computer.
Right click the Office setup program you downloaded and choose Properties from the context menu and click the Compatibility tab.
Then click the Change emulation settings button.
Check the option Hide x64 emulation capability.
Click OK then click OK again. Now double click the Office setup program and install Office. This will install the 32 bit version of Office on ARM 64.
The network drives should now show correctly when browsing the file system from Office.
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