ITunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Devices will not launch if an inaccessible network drive is present.

I have a network drive (Q:) that is unconditionally created on my computer (the device is owned by my employer). When I am at the office, on the office network, iTunes, Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Devices function properly. When I am at home or not on the office network, interacting with the Q: drive in any way locks up whatever software tried to access it.

For example:

• clicking on it (right or left click) in Windows Explorer locks up Explorer
• attempting to disconnect it via "net use Q: /delete" from a command line locks up the command line.

But the worst thing is, if this drive is present when I launch Apple software, the software will either never come up (in the case of iTunes, Apple Music and Apple TV) or it will come up in a non-functional state (in the case of Apple Devices).

Since there is no way for me to get rid of this company-mandated network drive, this essentially means I cannot use Apple products.

Please help!

Details:

When this situation occurs (e.g. I try to launch Apple Music when the Q: drive is present), what happens is that the "AppleMusic.exe" process appears in Task Manager, but it never shows a UI on screen. I've left it for over an hour, and it never comes up.

In the case of Apple Devices, it codes up, but is in a weird state -- for example, the hamburger icon menu pops up as an empty white rectangle, and it will not recognize devices plugged in.

I spent quite a bit of time with Apple support yesterday (2/28/2024) and my case number is 102237536123 (if there are any support people seeing this).

Thanks,

Tim Blaisdell