How to Connect to Network Resources in Windows XP Without Mapping Drive or Port

Contributed by mikejc August 24, 2004  
Tagged: Windows networking

This article explains how to use Universal Naming Convention (UNC) names with My Network Places to connect to network resources without mapping a drive or port.

You can access a file on a shared network resource when you type the location of the file in UNC format, or when you browse My Network Places.
To specify a file by using UNC format, use the following syntax:

\\Computer name\Share name\Path\File name

For example, to open a file named Report.xls in the Current\Month folder on a share named Documents, on a computer named Sales, type the following:

\\Sales\Documents\Current\Month\Report.xls

You can also use UNC names to connect to shared resources on NetWare servers. The NetWare syntax, Server/volume:folder, translates to the following UNC name:

\\server\volume\folder.

mike