Section 26.3. Mapping Shares to Drive Letters: All Versions

26.3. Mapping Shares to Drive Letters: All Versions

If you access network shares on a regular basis, you may want to consider another access technique, called mapping shares . Using this trick, you can assign a letter to a particular shared disk or folder on the network. Just as your hard drive is called C: and your floppy drive is A:, you can give your Family Stuff folder the letter F: and the backup drive in the kitchen the letter J:.

Doing so confers several benefits. First, these disks and folders now appear directly in the Computer window. Getting to them this way can be faster than navigating to the Network window. Second, when you choose File Open from within one of your applications, youll be able to jump directly to a particular shared folder instead of having to double-click, ever deeper, through the icons in the Open File dialog box. You can also use the mapped drive letter in pathnames anywhere you would use a path on a local drive, such as the Run dialog box, a File Save As dialog box, or the command line.

To map a drive letter to a disk or folder, open any folder or disk window. Then:

1. In any Explorer window, press Alt (or F10) to make the old menu bar appear. Choose Tools Map Network Drive .

   The Map Network Drive dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 26-8.

   

   Figure 26-8. Top: Supply your account name and password as it exists on the distant PC, the one you're trying to access .
   Bottom: The computers on your network are arrayed before you! Double-click the one you want to visit .

   
   

2. Using the drop-down list, choose a drive letter .

   You can select any unused letter you like (except B, which is still reserved for the second floppy disk drive that PCs don't have anymore).

3. Indicate which folder or disk you want this letter to represent .

   You can type its UNC code into the Folder box, choose from the drop-down list of recently accessed folders, or click Browse.

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   Tip: Most people use the mapping function for disks and drives elsewhere on the network, but there's nothing to stop you from mapping a folder that's sitting right there on your own PC.

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4. To make this letter assignment stick, turn on "Reconnect at logon."

   If you don't use this option, Windows forgets this assignment the next time you turn on the computer. (Use the "Connect using a different user name" option if your account name on the shared folder's machine isn't the same as it is on this one.)

5. Click Finish .

   A window opens to display the contents of the folder or disk. If you don't want to work with any files at the moment, just close the window.

From now on (depending on your setting in step 4), that shared disk or folder shows up in your Navigation pane along with the disks that are actually in your PC, as shown at bottom in Figure 26-8.

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Tip: If you see a red X on one of these mapped icons, it means that the PC on which one of the shared folders or disks resides is either off the network or turned off completely.

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