Mapping Network Drives

Windows 95 and Windows NT provide four methods for mapping a network drive:

Mapping a network drive from an application

You can write your own application to map a network drive by using the WNet Win 32 APIs. See the Net400 example program in the Client Access for Windows 95/NT Toolkit for an example that uses these APIs.

Mapping a network drive from the DOS prompt

You can use the net command that comes with Windows 95/NT to map a network drive. For example, typing the following command at a DOS prompt will map a W network drive to a directory called DOCS on the system named SYSTEM1:
NET USE W: \\SYSTEM1\DOCS

You can also specify whether or not you want the drive to be remapped when you restart your computer. To do this add the parameter:
/PERSISTENT:YES or /PERSISTENT:NO

Note that the path on the net command must be \\systemname\directoryname. You cannot map a network drive to the root level of the AS/400 or to a directory more than one level deep with the net command. See the note at the end of this topic for an explanation.

Mapping a network drive from Windows 95/NT Explorer

Select Map Network Drive from the Tools pulldown menu, then specify the drive, system name, and the path. See how to set up a network drive.

Mapping a network drive from the Network Neighborhood

Click the right mouse button on a folder from the Network Neighborhood and select Map Network Drive. Note that the Map Network Drive option is only available for folders shown when you double-click on a system name. See the note at end of this topic for an explanation.

Note:

Mapping a network drive from the DOS prompt and by using the Network Neighborhood strictly follows the Windows Networking definition of a network drive. The Windows Networking definition is that a network drive can be mapped only to a shared point of a system. A shared point is a folder directly under a system. Client Access supports more than this definition. You can connect a Client Access network drive directly to a system or a folder anyplace in the directory tree structure of the system. To map a network drive to the root of the AS/400 or a folder deeper than one level in the directory tree, you must use one of the following methods: