Folder and drive naming on a network

[Stephen Ford]

This is maybe general, maybe network. I think more general.

I've just set up a few PCs on a office network and have stumbled (tripped!)
over the problem of sharing data and how to set up a coherent set of drive
names.

There isn't a server as such, but one of the PC's (the oldest) is sharing
out more data than any other. All the PCs have different hardware, so all
the drives letters are different.

I want to copy application configurations across the PCs, but the different
drive letters mean that templates can't find files across the network
because all the drive letters are different.

I think I need to define a set of drive letters where data can be found and
configure each PC with the same drive letters.

I can handle mapping drives, but how do I "map" a local drive to create the
same set of drive letters on the "server", but which are local drives this
time, not network drives?

Regards
Stephen Ford

 

[Steve Winograd [MVP]]

This is maybe general, maybe network. I think more general.

I've just set up a few PCs on a office network and have stumbled (tripped!)
over the problem of sharing data and how to set up a coherent set of drive
names.

There isn't a server as such, but one of the PC's (the oldest) is sharing
out more data than any other. All the PCs have different hardware, so all
the drives letters are different.

I want to copy application configurations across the PCs, but the different
drive letters mean that templates can't find files across the network
because all the drive letters are different.

I think I need to define a set of drive letters where data can be found and
configure each PC with the same drive letters.

I can handle mapping drives, but how do I "map" a local drive to create the
same set of drive letters on the "server", but which are local drives this
time, not network drives?

Regards
Stephen Ford

In Windows XP, you can map a shared local drive as a network drive.
For example:

net use z: \\thiscomputer\data

In earlier versions of Windows, you had to use the "subst" command
(which also works in XP). The format is:

subst drive: path

For example:

subst z: c:\data
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

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