Okay. For anyone else facing the same issue: I found a workaround; however, other applications (Explorer, Total Commander, Salamander ) now no longer visually distinguish between connected and offline network drives, because the connection is only established at the moment of access—specifically, when I click the drive letter within the application.
Registry tweak to address the delay
- Press Win + R, type `regedit`, and press Enter.
- Navigate to the following path: `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\NetworkProvider`
- Look for the DWORD (32-bit) value named `RestoreConnection`.
- If the value does not exist, create it by right-clicking -> New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value and naming it exactly `RestoreConnection`.
- Double-click `RestoreConnection` and set the value to 0 (zero).
- Restart your computer.
Note: With this setting, the network drive will no longer connect in the background during system startup (or application startup); instead, it connects only when you actively access it in File Explorer.
All versions of MC now exhibit the same startup behavior...