inactive mapped shares (W2K)

[IzeBear63]

Have some mapped shares on a PC. I've noticed that after a while they become inactive (little red cross). This normal for windows 2000 I guess, see that on all 2000 PC's. Accessing the mapped shares makes them active again..... normally but not on one perticular PC I have. While there's no problem accessing files via explorer, despite that it shows as inactive, other programs can't access it, for instance saving a word file, or a FTP server that have some of it's resources on mapped shares.
Is there a way to prevent mapped drives getting "inactive"?

Thanks in advance