C# – Map Network drive from Web Service

Use this at your own risk. (I have tested it on XP and Server 2008 x64 R2)

For this hack you will need SysinternalsSuite by Mark Russinovich:

Step one: Open an elevated cmd.exe prompt (Run as administrator)

Step two: Elevate again to root using PSExec.exe: Navigate to the folder containing SysinternalsSuite and execute the following command psexec -i -s cmd.exe you are now inside of a prompt that is nt authority\system and you can prove this by typing whoami. The -i is needed because drive mappings need to interact with the user

Step Three: Create the persistent mapped drive as the SYSTEM account with the following command net use z: \\servername\sharedfolder /persistent:yes

It's that easy!

WARNING: You can only remove this mapping the same way you created it, from the SYSTEM account. If you need to remove it, follow steps 1 and 2 but change the command on step 3 to net use z: /delete.

NOTE: The newly created mapped drive will now appear for ALL users of this system but they will see it displayed as "Disconnected Network Drive (Z:)". Do not let the name fool you. It may claim to be disconnected but it will work for everyone. That's how you can tell this hack is not supported by M$.

I liked Mark Brackett's answer so much that I did my own quick implementation. Here it is if anyone else needs it in a hurry:

public class NetworkConnection : IDisposable
{
    string _networkName;

    public NetworkConnection(string networkName, 
        NetworkCredential credentials)
    {
        _networkName = networkName;

        var netResource = new NetResource()
        {
            Scope = ResourceScope.GlobalNetwork,
            ResourceType = ResourceType.Disk,
            DisplayType = ResourceDisplaytype.Share,
            RemoteName = networkName
        };

        var userName = string.IsNullOrEmpty(credentials.Domain)
            ? credentials.UserName
            : string.Format(@"{0}\{1}", credentials.Domain, credentials.UserName);

        var result = WNetAddConnection2(
            netResource, 
            credentials.Password,
            userName,
            0);

        if (result != 0)
        {
            throw new Win32Exception(result);
        }   
    }

    ~NetworkConnection()
    {
        Dispose(false);
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        Dispose(true);
        GC.SuppressFinalize(this);
    }

    protected virtual void Dispose(bool disposing)
    {
        WNetCancelConnection2(_networkName, 0, true);
    }

    [DllImport("mpr.dll")]
    private static extern int WNetAddConnection2(NetResource netResource, 
        string password, string username, int flags);

    [DllImport("mpr.dll")]
    private static extern int WNetCancelConnection2(string name, int flags,
        bool force);
}

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public class NetResource
{
    public ResourceScope Scope;
    public ResourceType ResourceType;
    public ResourceDisplaytype DisplayType;
    public int Usage;
    public string LocalName;
    public string RemoteName;
    public string Comment;
    public string Provider;
}

public enum ResourceScope : int
{
    Connected = 1,
    GlobalNetwork,
    Remembered,
    Recent,
    Context
};

public enum ResourceType : int
{
    Any = 0,
    Disk = 1,
    Print = 2,
    Reserved = 8,
}

public enum ResourceDisplaytype : int
{
    Generic = 0x0,
    Domain = 0x01,
    Server = 0x02,
    Share = 0x03,
    File = 0x04,
    Group = 0x05,
    Network = 0x06,
    Root = 0x07,
    Shareadmin = 0x08,
    Directory = 0x09,
    Tree = 0x0a,
    Ndscontainer = 0x0b
}