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Length of mapped network drives on XP

By carnesm ·
I'm going to give an example because I'm not exactly sure how to explain my problem:
When mapping H to a share on a server, this is the explorer view:

Share on 'Network: Server - HP NetServer (servername)' (H:)

Is there any way to change this so that the drive letter comes first?!? It's possible that we will be upgrading some users to XP, and don't want to make them memorize the sharename for each drive letter.

Thanks in advance,
Mike Carnes

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Length of mapped network drives on XP

by cdue In reply to Length of mapped network ...

Do you need the descirption in the Explorer view ? If not, you can right click and rename the mapping using a "blank space": This will make the share appears as a drive letter only

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Length of mapped network drives on XP

by carnesm In reply to Length of mapped network ...

Thanks for the reply. That would work in some cases. However, as an administrator, I sometimes rely on the share name just as much as the drive letter itself, so would like to keep the share as well as the drive letter first.
I took a look at Win2K right after posting this and found that it does the same thing, only not with the level of detail of XP (providing the brand of server).

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Length of mapped network drives on XP

by timwalsh In reply to Length of mapped network ...

Unfortunately, the solution in Answer 1 will not work with a mapped drive. In XP, even if you don't "name, drive, XP will give the drive a default name of "Local Disk" and then the drive letter.

I'm not sure what ther would be for your users to memorize. The drive letter will still be shown after the share name and all shared drives still show up in alphabetical order based on the drive letter, not the share name.

If it were possible to change how drives are "described" in Explorer, it would have to take place somewhere in the Registry. I couldn't find anyplace to make such a change.

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Length of mapped network drives on XP

by carnesm In reply to Length of mapped network ...

In certain instances, the entire path does not show up (it can be quite long) when saving or opening a file, or viewing paths in some applications. In these cases (I had one come up today, thus the question), the user would have to know the share name in order to find a file.
Perhaps I'm just being picky, but just trying to make things easier for the user.

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Length of mapped network drives on XP

by cdue In reply to Length of mapped network ...

I have tested a little in my lab environment and did something that might interesst you: I mapped the drive (to authnticate) using login script without a drive letter:
net use \\server\share
This connects to the share and give you two options:
1. My envorinment is mandatory/central profiles and I have a central location for where to push dekstop contence: I created a link (short cut) that you may call what ever you want (but no "H:")
2. The second option is to make the users utilize the "my network places" option where the network connection you called in your login script is visible using the format of:
"temp on walhall (Walhall)", this may be modifyed as desired.

For the comment in Reply 2, I agree there are probably somewhere in registry a way to change the layout of the name of a mapped drive, but i dont think you will ever be able to change the default way this is done, meaning you will have go to over each mapping (locally) and reset this, and keep track everytime you change a drivemapping. I suggest you explore the first option, that gives you central control over the naming.

I'm aware of the problem that occures if you have a mapped drive for a central installed application, but most applications will accept also the usage of an UNC path

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Length of mapped network drives on XP

by carnesm In reply to Length of mapped network ...

I appreciate you taking the time to do some testing with this. At this point we're not willing to enforce mandatory profiles, but that doesn't mean we won't explore it down the road sometime. I'll keep that solution in the back of my head.
Right now, I am not going to focus too much on this issue, as it really isn't a big deal. The people that have a problem with it will have to deal with it for the time being.
Thanks again for the effort...for that I'll give you the points :)

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Length of mapped network drives on XP

by carnesm In reply to Length of mapped network ...

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