How to mount a network drive to a folder?

Question

Does anyone know of a third party (or even windows native) solution to this simple problem.

I want to map an internal network share on our windows server to a folder on each of the client machines in the network. I dont want to have to use Drive Letters I would just like to set up a Folder on my C drive that is actually a windows share

eg

C:\DATA\Network Docs

is actuallyp pointing to

\\Server\SharedData\

Is this possible? Is there a third party solution that does it? All clients are Windows XP and Windows 7.

Answer 1

In Windows Vista or Windows 7, you can create a "junction folder"/"Symbolic link" to redirect the contents of one to another.

Simply type:

mklink /d "c:\data\network docs" "\\server\shareddata\"

I have not tested it with a FQDN, but as far as I can tell, it should work. I have tested it with a network mapped drive, and this works perfectly... so at a last resort, you can map first, then do this.

The /d creates a directory (c:\data\network docs in this example) and it must not exist. It will be created by this command.

You must have admin privileges when you run CMD. You can do this under an admin account by pressing ctrl-shift-enter instead of enter when you run CMD.

The end result is also achievable in Windows XP, but it is not as easy. Guide here

Answer 2

It is not automatic, but SyncToy (by Microsoft) will do the job very well, I really like it. The syncing style is configurable (Echo, One-way, etc) and it handles network shares and folders easily.

SyncToy 2.1 is a free application that synchronizes files and folders between locations. Typical uses include sharing files, such as photos, with other computers and creating backup copies of files and folders.

Works seamlessly between Windows XP, Vista, and 7 with no problems.