I'm experiencing two networking problems (which might be related) while using Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit. My PC at work was recently swapped out from an ancient Windows XP system to a new Windows 7 one and I'm acting as a guiena pig so there is no technical support available. Can anybody please help with the following problems?

Firstly, we use Novell Netstorage to provide WebDAV access to a set of shared folders. The addresses are of the form

These could be accessed through "My Network Places" on Windows XP without any problems but can not be added to "Network" on Windows 7. Entering the address into the "Folder" text box on the "Map Network Drive" window and clicking OK brings up a prompt for a username and password. Entering these and clicking on OK results int an error message reading:
"The mapped network drive could not be created because the following error has occured: A device attached to the system is not functioning."
The shared folders can sucessfully be accessed via Firefox in Windows 7 and also Windows XP running in a Virtual PC on the Windows 7 system.

Secondly, shared printers are provided using IPP. In Windows XP it is posssible to add these via the "Add Printer Wizard" by selecting a Network printer and entering the address of the form:

and this works on the Virtual PC running inside Windows 7. Following the same procedure on Windows 7 itself generates the following error message:
"Windows couldn't connect to the printer. Check the printer name and try again. If this is a network printer, make sure that the printer is turned on, and that the printer address is correct."

Windows 7 is not officially support by our IT deaprtment so they won't appreciate having to change any of their settings but they are interested in seeing how Windows 7 work (or otherwise) on the network here. Any help gratefully received.

I assume you've network location is set to "work"

Network location is set to "Work network".

The printing issues will be down to the IPP box not having 64bit drivers on it. You'll have to create local ports mapping to the hostnames of the printers.

For files, the issue may similar to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942392

i have read that setting the printer up on win 7 to 'local printer' and having the required drivers installed then setting up this with the required IP for the printer works for a network printer on win 7

i could be way off here as its just what i have read on other forums ...

Works for Vista & XP as well.

And anything involving 64bit clients with 32bit servers

Thanks to both of you saspro and MrStevenRodgers I feel we're getting close to a solution. I've tracked down the drivers for the printers and installed them to use local ports LPT1: and LPT2: but am now having trouble mapping the printer ports to the network device.

Using the eaxmple of a Cannon iRC3580i multi-function device, I install the "Cannon iR C3030/3480/3580 PCL 6 driver" 64 bit driver . This is the same driver as provided in the 32 bit form by the IPP box. Then I try to use the "net use" command to map LPT1 to the https: address as detailed here, adding the username and password as detailed here. The resulting command look like this:
This results in the following message:

I suspect we are close to getting this working. Any help with the remaining printer problem gratefully received.

this maybe of help its for XP but the setup should be similar for win7 ...

http://uis.georgetown.edu/software/docu ... inter.html

Thanks but there seem to be some problems with that approach. I followed the steps there until step 11, obtaining the ip address and port details for the printer from the sucessful installation on the Windows XP Virtual PC. After clicking on "Next" I get taken through to the error screen shown in step 12.

Step 12 is not an error.

It's the message yo uget if you're not connecting to a HP printer