Using the Command Line
To map drives from the command line, use the Net Use command. This command has many switches; I discuss only the most commonly used. (You can look up the command's full syntax in Windows Help.)
To see the currently mapped drives and determine which drive letters are available, type
net use
at a command prompt. As Figure 2 shows, the command returns the current status of each connection in addition to the drive letter, the share's UNC name, and the network. The network is typically Microsoft Windows Network, but if you run another OS, the Network column will reflect that. For example, if you run Novell NetWare client software and map drives to a NetWare server, the network will be NetWare.
To map a shared folder to a drive letter, specify the drive letter and the share's UNC name on the Net Use command. For example,
net use d: \\BigServer\DataFiles
maps the DataFiles share on the BigServer computer to drive D. If any folder in the share's path contains a space, you must put the entire path, including the opening double backslash (\\), in quotation marks.
Whether the computer will reconnect to the share at logon depends on the last state of the Reconnect at logon option. However, you don't need to open the GUI to see what the current setting is—you can simply use the /persistent: switch on the Net Use command to set the reconnection option you prefer. For example, to reconnect to DataFiles at logon, enter
net use d: \\BigServer\DataFiles
/persistent: yes
To map the drive for this session only, you'd type
net use d: \\BigServer\DataFiles
/persistent: no
Unlike the GUI's mapping function, the Net Use command lets you map to shared folders' child folders. To map an unshared subfolder called Clients in the shared DataFiles folder, you'd type
net use
d: \\BigServer\DataFiles\Clients
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