Saturday, September 24, 2011

Creating a network drive with Net use Command in Windows 7.



In this article I would discuss the problem with respect to creating a network drive  for a share in Windows 7 by using the NET USE Command . The problem was that when  I  tried to create a network drive in Windows Xp  using net use . The command  worked absolutely fine .It also showed me a network drive in the Windows Explorer.

But with Windows 7 the command completed successfully but surprisingly the drive was not visible in  Windows Explorer. Let me show  you the steps which I followed
 I used an Administrator command prompt and  typed the following command
   NET USE Z:  \\mycomputer\sharetest
  
The command  completed  successfully  but there wasn’t  a network drive visible in the Windows Explorer.
I  searched  a number forums  and tried several workarrounds and finally got a crude method to get out of it. Many of forums pointed to UAC settings of Windows 7.

Note:  The solution provided below can have side effects on the working of Windows and also may lead to security  implications .The author is not responsible. You would always do it at your own risk.

Following  are the steps followed to solve the problem.

1.     Goto  Start --> run Type msconfig and  press enter you get the tabbed screen shown below



2.     Goto Tools tab-> Select Change UAC settings  and then click on Launch. You would get the screen shown below



3.     Bring down the slider to Never notify.



4.     Click on Ok
5.     Restart  your Computer
6.     Run the command  prompt as Administrator  and the command       

    NET USE Z:  \\mycomputer\sharetest.
7.     Finally you can see the network drive visible in Windows Explorer