Windows – Mount Remote CIFS/SMB Share as a Folder not a Drive Letter

cifsdirectorymountsharewindows

Is there any way to mount a remote CIFS/SMB/SAMBA share as a folder/directory and not as a drive letter. For example, I want this map:

\\Server\ShareName -> C:\Folder\ShareName

Instead of the usual map like this:

\\Server\ShareName -> Z:\

The server is Linux/Samba and the client is Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. The closest I've found is being able to mount a local volume as a subfolder using the Windows disk manager, but it doesn't appear to handle remote CIFS shares (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307889).

Best Answer

Just to map a network share directory you would use this command:

net use \\Server\ShareName\Directory

This mapping would:

  • not be persistent
  • would have to be established and authenticated at user login
  • you would access the share using the UNC path, and not a local drive letter

If you want to access the network share through a location on your local C: drive, you'll want to set up a symbolic link:

mklink /d  C:\Folder\ShareName \\Server\ShareName\Directory

Now when you navigate to C:\Folder\Share you'll see the contents of \\\Server\Sharename\Directory. You'll still need to provide authentication for the resource with something like net use (or just be logged into a domain account on a domain system that has access) otherwise the link will probably error out angrily.

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