Map a Drive

You can also access network resources by mapping a network drive using Windows Explorer. After you have mapped a network drive, it will appear as just another drive letter in either My Computer or Windows Explorer, right alongside your local drives like C:\ and D:\.

You can map a network drive in several ways. Here's one:

1.	From the Start Menu, right-click either My Computer or My Network Places and choose Map Network Drive.
2.	The Map Network Drive dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 11-10. Choose the drive letter that will be associated with this network connection and then the path to the location. You can use any letter for the drive that is not already taken. You can specify the folder location by typing the UNC pathname of the folder or clicking Browse to search for the folder location. Figure 11-10. Mapping a network drive.
3.	If you want this mapped network connection to be persistent, make sure the "Reconnect at logon" check box remains selected. (It will be selected by default.) This will ensure that the mapped connection is part of a user profile and will reappear in Windows Explorer each time the user logs on.
4.	You can also specify a different user name that will be used to establish this connection. To do this, click the hyperlink called "different user name" and then designate the account used for the connection.

Now, accessing your common network places is as easy as opening Windows Explorer and choosing the appropriate drive letter. In other words, accessing resources locally and over the network is all but indistinguishable.

Additionally, you can use the NET USE utility at the command line to map a drive. The NET USE utility uses the following syntax:

NET USE x: \\computername\sharename

where x is the drive letter used for the mapped connection, and \\computername\sharename is the UNC path to the share. (You read the UNC sidebar, didn't you?) Once you map the network drive, you can access its drive letter just as you would any other drive on your system:

Although not terribly difficult, it does require a bit more work than using any of the graphical methods discussed previously. It is most commonly employed by administrators in batch files at logon time so that all network users have access to a central file server.