XP: Connect Network Drive

Contributed by davak August 15, 2004  
Tagged: Windows

Treat your network shares like a local hard drive.

I recently installed an mp3 and storage server in my house. To keep from having to remember all the different stores’ names, I just mapped the servers stores as network drives.

I mapped my storage share as x:
I mapped my music share as z:

Like most things in windows, you can do it in several different ways.

From the Command Line –

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type cmd in the open textbox and click OK
4. From the command prompt, type
net use drive: \\computername\sharename

[list]drive: is the drive letter you want to use (for example, z:)
computername is the computer that contains the shares
sharename is the share you wish to map

From Network Places –

1. Click Start
2. Click My Network Places
3. Select Entire Network
4. Open Microsoft Windows Network
5. Click your domain
6. Click the computer with the shared resources
7. When the shares appear, right click the one you want to map
8. Select Map Network Drive from the context menu
9. Select the drive letter you want to use
10 Click Finish

From My Computer –

1. Open My Computer
2. Click the Tools Menu
3. Select Map Network Drive
4. Select the drive letter for your virtual drive
5. Either browse or input the name of your share in the following format:
your shares the server and shared resource in the following format:
\\servername\sharename

[list]computername is the computer that contains the shares
sharename is the share you wish to map

6. Click Finish