A mapped drive is
just a shortcut to a drive that's physically located on a different computer. Mapping a drive simply means to connect a local drive with a specially
allocated shared directory or
folder on another computer. After a drive has been mapped, you can access
the shared resource and treat it as if
it’s located locally on your own computer. More than one computer may map
their drives to this shared resource and take advantage of this networked
space. Does it sound very complicated? Believe me it’s not and right below we
show you how you can quickly set it up and the uses to put it to.
How
to map a drive?
Step
1. To connect a drive from My Computer,
click on Start, right-click My Computer, and then
click Explore. Alternatively, to connect a drive
from Windows Explorer, right-click on Start, and then
click Explore.
The Map
Network Drive dialog gives you brief on the process as you can see from the
screenshot below:
Step
2. Select a drive letter from the dropdown that you want to use
to connect to the shared folder. Enter the UNC path to the shared folder on
the other computer. UNC path is just a special naming convention for pointing
to a folder or printer on another computer. UNC names
consist of three parts – a server name, a share name, and an optional file
path (to access sub-directories if any). These three are brought together using
backslashes in this format is: \\server name\share name.
Step
3. More conveniently, you can also click Browse to
find the computer and shared resource on your network. This is useful when
you don’t know the name of the folder. You can expand the Microsoft Network
and then each computer one-by-one to see the shared folders.
Step
4. Select Reconnect at login checkbox if you
want the network drive to be connected permanently. Otherwise, the drive you
created will ‘un-map’ when you log out of the computer.
Step
5. The networked computer with the shared folder might require
a different username and password to log in. Click the different
user name link and enter this information the username and
password.
Clicking on Finish completes the mapping process.
Benefits
·
Perfect for
storing large files, or large collections of files, somewhere else that has
more hard drive space.
·
You can back up
data not only from your local computer but also any file you're accessing
through a mapped drive.
·
Multiple people
can share access to the same files. This means data can be shared among
co-workers or family members without the need to send emails back and forth
when they're updated or changed.
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