Mapped Drive -> UNC

Question

We don't have a common set of drive mappings at our company for certain network shares. Inevitably, someone will create a custom drive mapping to a folder, then they will link to a document under that drive mapping and either embed the link into an email or word document.

Of course, nobody else has this drive mapping on their computer. Is there anyway I can tell my users how to make a proper link to a document which lives out on a fileshare such that, if it's not on one of the standard mapped drives they can obtain the full UNC path to the document? Something easier for them than having to drop to a command prompt, type "net use", copy the UNC path for the drive, then concatenate that onto the rest of the path to the file.

Phew. If such a feature or such a shell extension exists, I would love to know.

OS is Windows XP.

Answer 1

We use Ninotech's Path Copy which is a shell extension that allows you to right-click on an item and do all kinds of cool things. Copying long UNC paths is among them.

Unfortunately, getting a user to realize when to use a UNC path (beyond even knowing what it really is) is a different story...

Answer 2

My coworker and I hacked together this script GetNetworkPath.

It basically translates a path on a shared drive to a file:// URL and escapes everything so the URL can be passed around in an email.

When installed, a item 'GetNetworkPath' is added to the context menu for all files and folders. When you click it, a dialog box pops up that you can copy and paste the correct URL from.

The page includes the GetNetworkPath script and a startup script that you can use to deploy GetNetworkPath via a GPO. You'll need to tweak the install script for your domain.