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Don't you hate those times when the answer has been staring you in the face all the while you're tearing your hair out trying to figure out the solution? I'm in the process of migrating stuff from an aging Novell file server to a Linux file server. In the Novell login script I had something like:

MAP U:=VOL1:\USERS\%LOGIN_NAME

so I used the (supposedly) equivalent command for accessing the Linux server with Samba:

NET USE U \\fileserver\users\username

where "users" was a share on the new file server. Worked on the Win2k, WinXP and Vista computers, not the Win98 boxes (need to stick with Win98 because of a peice of hardware that isn't supported on NT/2K/XP/Vista). Looked through several books, as well as searching the Web for answers. Most of the "tips" told me that I the key was to enabling plaintext authentication in Samba. This was weird, as not only could I browse the folder (under Network Neighborhood), and even:

DIR \\fileserver\users\username

at the command line -- both of which would indicate it *was not* an authentication problem.

Upon trying to do the same with the Windows 2000 server, I noticed I was having the same problem... Aha! Delved into the problem again, then hit upon the explanation:

In Windows 95/98 you can map drive letters to a share, but not to a subdirectory on a share.