Mapped network drive letter not available in command prompt
Hello,first post here!The following is happening:While mapping a external share to a drive letter, the drive letter is not availableon the command line.Running as administrator does not resolve this.Is this a permissions issue? On my test machine it works fine, but on a client'smachine I can't get them to show up no matter what I do. Only physical drivesare available on the cl, but all mapped drives are available when using the UI.Hope you can help.Marinus.
October 18th, 2007 10:48pm

I got exacle the same. And a Windows program (ActiveSky) won't run properly because of this:it can not find shared folders on a different computer. Drive free space info in 'My Computer' is also not shown for the mapped drives until drive is opend via explorer. So looks like a network connection not opening. I tried: Different (new) user on same machine. And various batch files dir f:\ and looked at NET ... commands. Changing network tcpip and sharing options This all fails. It seems I just found a workaround (need reboot to test properly) Opening the maped drive via the explorer command line options, putting this in STARTUP using a shortcut (explorer /n,f:\ to open the f: drive) However this leaves open unwanted windows. So looking at a proper solution on how to access mapped network drives from command prompt, that is how to open the network connection properly so windows programs and cmd promt do find and open mapped drives. Hajo
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October 22nd, 2007 2:17am

Unfortunately this warkaround also did not work on statup: An error occured while reconnection F: to [\\pc\share]the requested recource is in use connection has not be restored. So how to get network connections really active on system startup automatically (so without first browsing via My Computer)? BTW:this occurs on aWorkgroup solution, just connecting 2 PC's, connected via tcp/ipusing fixed IP addresses. Marinus: what network setup do you have problems with? Hajo
October 22nd, 2007 2:44am

Hoi Hajo,the setup is Vista to a Buffalo TeraStation (Linux/Samba) on a LAN.I fixed it with SUBST but that's pretty ugly; I have to do SUBST S: T: and SUBST S: /e when I'm done syncing.S: is the letter of the mapped drive, which is available through Explorer.A normal solution would be nice. If you find out anything more then let us know.Marinus.
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October 25th, 2007 5:10pm

I've just come across this on my vista machine and NAS. I used "cmd S:" from the start --> run menuand whilst the command window opened on the c drive,it then recognised the s: drive. TJeffer
January 18th, 2008 11:40am

Hello. This is an old topic, I know, but it carried over to Windows 7 and this article came the closest to the issue I was searching for. Through "trial and error" I found a solution to the problem I was seeing like this by: 1) make sure the command prompt was opened as an administrator (allows access to all folders) 2) use the command "net use <drive letter> \\<servername>\<sharename>" for the share you need to access I recommend trying this without running the prompt as an admin first to see if it does what you need. In my case, I was copying shortcuts to the c:\users\public\desktop folder through a batch file to install custom utilites we use, so I required the admin access. Also...and this may be a Windows 7 thing as didn't use Vista much...I found that in a standard (non-admin) command prompt session, I could access the network shares, but I could not through an admin command prompt. I found that I could include this line as part of the batch files I use as long as the batch files were run as an administrator. It worked like a champ. -Scott
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April 21st, 2010 8:53am

2) use the command "net use <drive letter> \\<servername>\<sharename>" for the share you need to access -Scott First of all, this problem is SOOOO BOGUS it beggars the imagination. . . . IMHO, this is like saying "The command prompt cannot copy/rename/change directories", etc. The ability to access a properly mounted, networked drive should be, and is, fundamental to any operating system more recent than CPM. Especially, from a sysadmin point-of-view it makes batch file scripting a nightmare - that is more so than it is already. Even though you can work-around it with a "net use", I personally feel that this borders on a horridly ugly hack for functionality that should exist by default. And HAS existed by default before. In addition, requiring "net use" prevents a non-Administrative user, who is familiar with the command-line, from making use of resources that he may be perfectly authorized to use. (i.e. Uploading a bunch of edited documents or test-scripts to a globally shared resource, using parameters like "/D" to limit the upload to modified objects only.) In summary I feel that this is absolutely unacceptable and should be logged by Microsoft as a Sev-1, Priority-High bug for immediate resolution. Note that I have not yet tried using the command line to map: A shared and mapped drive whose target is another Windows machine. Specifying an administrative share (c$, etc.) Specifying a drive via a URL (\\system\share or \\[IP address]\share It would be interesting to see if anyone else has tried these. What say ye? Jim (JR)
November 4th, 2011 4:55pm

Hi - Thanks for the ("cmd: S") tip. That's just what I needed (learn something new every day). Bob
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February 7th, 2012 1:46pm

I am facing the same issue using a Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard. To workaround I used the "net use" where I can make use of a DOS command view running as admin, once that I need run some scripts as admin user. I agree that this should have a solution cause I took a good time trying to figure out why I was not able to run dir, copy, etc on the mounted driver. Cheers.System Architect
February 22nd, 2012 7:22am

use cd /D(Drive letter):\ It worked on my win 7 home prem. sp 1.
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June 10th, 2012 9:03am

Open registry editor and locate the following path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters In the right pane, click the autodisconnect value, and then on the Edit menu, click Modify. If the autodisconnect value does not exist, follow these steps: On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click REG_DWORD. Type autodisconnect, and then press ENTER. On the Edit menu, click Modify. Click Hexadecimal. In the Value data box, type ffffffff, and then click OK. Close the registry editor and restart the PC.Regards Jinish.K.G|HCL Infosystems LTD
June 18th, 2012 7:02am

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