Mapping Network Drive - MS Windows

Mapping Network Drive - MS Windows

by Jerry Winegarden, Duke University

last revised 2/24/04

Mapping a network drive under MS Windows creates a disk drive icon (with an associated drive letter such as H:) in "My Computer" which allows you to treat the network shared folder as if it were another disk drive on your PC. This saves having to go through "Network Neighborhood" or "My Network Places" and then through the servernames and then through the list of shared folders every time you want to access a folder shared from a server.

There are two methods:

  1. Interactively:

    • via Windows GUI interface

      Windows 98

      1. ==>Network Neighborhood ==>Servername ==>Folder
      2. ==>File ==>Map Network Drive
        Map Network Drive window opens
      3. ==>Drive Letter (e.g. H)
      4. enter folder network path name in folder box
        OR
        ==>Browse (to select folder path name)
      5. ==>"Reconnect at logon" IF you want this mapping to be permanent
      6. ==>OK

      Windows 2000

      1. Right click==>My Network Places (on Desktop)
      2. ==>Map Network Drive
        Map Network Drive window opens
      3. ==>Drive Letter (e.g. H)
      4. enter folder network path name in folder box
        OR
        ==>Browse (to select folder path name)
      5. ==>"Reconnect at logon" IF you want this mapping to be permanent
      6. ==>OK

      Windows XP

      1. Right click==>My Network Places (on Desktop or in Start Menu)
      2. ==>Map Network Drive
        Map Network Drive window opens
      3. ==>Drive Letter (e.g. H)
      4. enter folder network path name in folder box
        OR
        ==>Browse (to select folder path name)
      5. ==>"Reconnect at logon" IF you want this mapping to be permanent
      6. ==>OK

    • Via manual command

      • ==>Start
      • ==>Run
        • Win98
          1. ==>command ==>OK
          2. net use H: \\yourserver\sharename (drive letter, select from list)
        • Win 2000/XP
          1. ==>cmd ==>OK
          2. net use H: \\yourserver\sharename /user:username

  2. automatically via script

    • place net use command in a .BAT file such as
      logon.bat
      net use h: \\servername\sharename
net time \\servername /set /yes

(Note: net time syncronizes PC's clock to the server's, not required,
	but a nice touch.  Of course, make sure your server's clock is
	being synchronized to some ntp time server (e.g. clock2.redhat.com))
    • place .bat file in correct place (so it gets run as part of logon process by user), or run it by double clicking on the file name