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Even Mien
Asked: 2009-05-08 05:48:59 +0800 CST

Is it possible to make a network drive show up as a folder?

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I'm using an online backup solution that does not work with networked drives or mapped drives. Is it possible to make a network drive show up as a "regular" folder? What possible impacts could this have?

Edit: The backup solution will backup files located here:

c:\SharedFolder

but not via net use command, such as:

F:\

I'm interested in do doing this in Windows Vista (and pretty soon in Windows 7).

windows-vista network-share directory

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Microsoft added Symlink support in Windows Vista, which should work here. You'll need to use the mklink command line tool to do this:

    MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target

/D - Creates a directory symbolic link. Default to file symbolic link.
/H - Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
/J - Creates a Directory Junction.
Link - Specifies the new symbolic link name.
Target - Specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link refers to.

    In your case, it'd work like this (assuming Z: is your mapped drive):

    C:\> mklink /D C:\SharedFolder Z:

    Then you should be able to point your backup software to C:\SharedFolder.

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  2. You could try creating a symbolic link

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  3. Does it not work because it is a network drive, or because it doesn't have a drive letter/path?

    If it's the second, just map the network drive to a drive letter.

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