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I am not sure but when I start my Command Prompt in Administrator mode, I can't switch to a mapped drive. I can do so if I am not in Administrator mode.

Am I missing something simple?

2
  • What are the permissions on the network mapped drives?
    – Ramhound
    Dec 18, 2013 at 19:56
  • 3
    That's normal. Map them again in that command prompt. net use driveLetter: \\YourUNChere
    – Mark Allen
    Dec 18, 2013 at 20:00

3 Answers 3

72

When you start a command prompt "As Administrator" it's running in a different user context than when you don't.

Since mapped drives are user-centric, that Admin user context will not have the (same) drives, and you'll have to map them for that user context once the command window is open as Adminsitrator, e.g. by running net use <letter>: \\<server>\<share>. An example:

net use Z: \\SuperServer\SuperShare

Also, you can enable the EnableLinkedConnections flag in the registry to cause the session token to be shared:

To work around this problem, configure the EnableLinkedConnections registry value. This value enables Windows Vista and Windows 7 to share network connections between the filtered access token and the full administrator access token for a member of the Administrators group.

To do this, set the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLinkedConnections DWORD flag to 1, and then reboot your machine.

For more info on that from Microsoft, see: Some Programs Cannot Access Network Locations When UAC Is Enabled

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  • 3
    This workaround has never worked for me and I'm not sure why. Tried on Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. Trying to access Parallels mapped network drives (\\psf*) from within a Windows VM. Jan 13, 2014 at 15:37
  • 2
    @JasonDuffett same scenario here. Got it to work with: net use Z: \\psf\Home Mar 17, 2015 at 10:15
  • 1
    The EnableLinkedConnections registry flag does not work for me, on Windows 10. net use in an administrator console works. Aug 31, 2016 at 13:58
  • Not working for me either on Windows 7 x64 - net use ... works fine Apr 20, 2017 at 20:34
16

This makes me think about an old Windows Vista reported issue.

Can you try:

  1. Open RegEdit
  2. Go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
  3. Create a DWORD value named EnableLinkedConnections and set it to 1
  4. Reboot the computer
  5. Test again
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  • 1
    Yes that didn't work for me in Wondows 10.
    – Owl
    Aug 28, 2018 at 14:52
10

One other work-around that took me ages to find is to run net use from a scheduled task as the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM account. Apparently drives mapped under this account show up for all users and all elevation levels.

I've tested this and it works even on NFS shares (which can be a bit finicky). Just create a scheduled task set to run at system startup, and specify the following command:

net use \\server\share Z: /persistent:no

It might possibly work to run it just once with /persistent:yes, but I haven't tried that. Granted, "just map it again" works too, but that drive still won't be visible to scheduled tasks running in different contexts. The downside is that all real users see it too, so not so good for multiuser setups.

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  • could you add about the method you use to open cmd as "NT Authority\SYSTEM"? I heard that psexec from sysinternals can do that, is that what you are using? And I recall something about task scheduler being able to do it.. maybe you can elaborate?
    – barlop
    Jun 19, 2022 at 19:04
  • @barlop I don't open cmd under that user account; I just create a Scheduled Task and the user account is one of the settings on the General tab.
    – RomanSt
    Jun 24, 2022 at 18:56
  • The order of arguments is mixed in your example. It should be net use Z: \\server\share /persistent:no. In other words, drive letter should come first after net use. Aug 16 at 18:59

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