How do you handle "CMD does not support UNC paths as current directories"?

If you're considering scripting it, it's always helpful to learn about the pushd and popd commands. Sometimes you can't be sure what drives letters are already used on the machine that the script will run on and you simply need to take the next available drive letter. Since net use will require you to specify the drive, you can simply use pushd \\server\folder and then popd when you're finished.

Or you could switch your shell to PowerShell. It has complete support for UNC paths.

You could use net use to map a network drive to a UNC path and then browse to the mapped drive.

This worked for me in Win8x64:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor]
"DisableUNCCheck"=dword:00000001

You should be able to do this in HKCU as well, just make sure you log off and back on again.

Slightly longer explanation of pushd here: http://shortfastcode.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-to-deal-with-cmd-does-not-support.html

Pushd Works, but ...

I have been using

pushd "%~dp0\"

at the start of cmd files for longer than I can remember, always with a complementary

popd 

at the end of the file. Until recently this was working, when:

1. My script was pausing and I was using ^C to exit.
2. I did this about 24 times over several days of testing on a remote desktop.

Then I got the vague error, if not completely misleading error:

CMD does not support UNC paths as current directories.

Finally, I thought to try

NET USE

To my surprise, I had used all of the drive letters up. After I did

NET USE * /D

I was happy again knowing I had not lost my mind.

Here is my standard cmd prolog:

SETLOCAL EnableExtensions
rem pushd handles Windows dumbness when the command directory is a UNC
rem and we want to use it as the current directory. e.g. click launch a cmd file on the network.
pushd "%~dp0\"

As well as explicitly mapping a drive so that cmd can cope, which might be needed by other utilities too, you could also try an alternative command shell like PowerShell.

as per @pk use pushd & popd, here is an example.

use pushd to create a temporary virtual drive and after done do a popd to delete the temporary virtual drive

:selectFolder
REM Confirm which Folder structure
set /p location="Delete files for which QA environment: (P)retoria, (C)ape, (L)uanda or (Q)uit? (C/L/P/Q)"
REM  I option allows for upper and lower case
if /I "%location%"=="C" set folder="\\Tfwcqa\tfwcqa\EORDERS"
if /I "%location%"=="L" set folder="\\Tfluaqa\tfluaqa\EORDERS"
if /I "%location%"=="P" set folder="\\Tfptaqa\tfptaqa\EORDERS"
if /I "%location%"=="Q" goto endBatch

REM you can not cd to a network drive so we use pushd to create a temporary virtual drive
REM cd /d %folder%
pushd %folder%

DIR /S

REM popd deletes the temporary virtual drive
popd

Instead of

cd \\server_name\folder_name

use

pushd \\server_name\folder_name

..EXE path here..

popd

Below code completely worked for me, see the example

@echo off
echo "Email payment to prod payment sync program started"

pushd \\Server_name\it\0a. IT Projects\XYZ Project\Report Builds\Emailpayment to prod payment sync build

"\\Server_name\it\0a. IT Projects\XYZ Project\Report Builds\Emailpayment to prod payment sync build\xyz.exe" 
popd

pushd \\Server_name\it\0a. IT Projects\XYZ Project\Report Builds\Daily Invoice report build

"\\Server_name\it\0a. IT Projects\XYZ Project\Report Builds\Daily Invoice report build\XYZ1.exe" %-5

popd
echo "Daily invoice report program ended"

Wouldn't the junction command work here?