Mapping a drive on the server, itself 2

[manerch]

I've been inheriting some problems on a fairly new W2K member server. It is the sole server with about 10 XP (home ed.) clients. It mainly runs an accounting app whose clients need to be mapped to a certain drive on the server. For some reason, that drive was mapped on the server (I think that at one time someone may have been using the accounting app on the server itself). Example: On the server, they've gone to "Map Network Drive" and mapped m: to \\servername\accounting share.
Now we have a timeclock app that the distributors want to install and run on the server. This requires a drive to be mapped, once again, from the server to the server. This seems redundant to me. Whenever we attempt this mapping, the server locks up and I have no idea why. Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jimrockford]

Mapping a network drive assigns a drive letter to a folder on another machine. Some programs can't handle UNC (\\server\share) path names and therefore mapping a drive is required.

In your situation, it doesn't sound like you should have to map a drive. Since the folder that you need to access is on the same machine, it already has a drive letter. You should be able to specify the local path. Have you tried that?

 

[oisnds]

I am assuming the new application expects it's data to be on a particular drive letter requiring either that you map a drive or reassign a drive to that letter in the disk manager.

If you really need a drive mapping you will need to create a share to map to, I don't think you can map to a folder.

 

[manerch]

I think that the app needs to access a database, and that's why the mapping becomes necessary. I can't understand why it would freeze my box though.

 

[mmendes]

If you are having trouble with the mapped drive, you might consider using the DOS subst command instead. Go to a command prompt and type subst /? for details. You can then add this to a batch file and place it in the All Users startup folder so the drive gets created automatically when you log in.

 

[oisnds]

Most likely cause would be rights issue to the share or the file system under the share. Since it is a database, it could also be a problem if the database is read-only.