How to map network drives for all users in Windows 7

Question

I am trying to map network drives in Windows 7.  I did it by usual method, but those network drives only appear for one user (administrator) and they do not appear for other users.  Is there any way to map those drives as admin so that all users can see them (instead of each user maps by himself)?

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

Hi May 1,

There is no option to map the network drive for all users at one go.

However you can access the mapped network drive from other user accounts using credentials.

To access the mapped network drive.

1.      Click Start and click on Computer.

2.      Click on Map Network Drive.

3.      Now put a check mark in Connect using different credentials.

4.      Click Finish.

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Answer 2

It'd be once per user.  From that point forward, it would automatically connect every time the user logs into Windows, as long as the network location is accessible.  If the server or remote computer was off, it'd prompt the user during login to let them know that a drive could not be connected.

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Answer 3

I tried mapping network drives via HKLM run registry myself recently without success. I suspect the HKLM Run registries are run at computer startup, not at logon, and not run in the user's context. Mapped network drives appear to be a user setting and therefore need to be run in the user's context.

I even tried a logon script via the Local Group Policy. (I wanted all users to have these particular network drives only when logging on to a specific computer.) But that didn't seem to work either for some reason.

I would suggest placing a .bat script with the net use commands into the All Users StartMenu folder.

So, In Windows 7:

Open your prefered text editor such as notepad or notepad++. (You will have to run-as-admin if you have UAC enabled due to where we will be saving it.)

Type in your code:

@Echo OffNet use P: *\\Server\Share1* /Persistent:NoNet use Q: *\\Server\Share2* /Persistent:NoNet use G: *\\Server2\Share3* /Persistent:No

I used /Persistent:No because I am confident in the server connectivity and do not want to have to use a Net Use [Drive] /Delete in order to remove drives later. The script will be running everytime at each logon so I did not feel the need for it to reconnect itself.

You may use a /Persistent:Yes if you wish, but this means that the drive will remain even if you later remove it from the logon script. As mentioned above, you can counteract this with a net use [drive] /delete.

Save the file as a .bat file to %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

E.G.

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\MapNetworkDrives.bat

If you need to specify alternate credentials, you can do so with "Net Use Z: \Server\Share /User:Domain\Username Password" but be warned, this will save the password in plain text for anyone to read. And the script will be quite easily findable as it will be in everyone's StartMenu -> Programs -> Startup folder. (Which means it's also easy for users to re-run the script if they've lost their drives for some reason. Or they could just log out and back in.)

This will also work for other Windows operating systems, even Windows 8 despite not having a Start Menu (the files are still there, and I can confirm that items in the startup folder will be run at logon), but the location you need to save the script in might be different. If you right click on the folder in the start-menu, you can generally get the opion to "Open All Users". This should let you know where it is. Except for Windows 8 obviously... stupid not having a start-menu... Pretty sure it was in the same location as Windows 7.

Answer 4

Thank you for the reply.  I have one more question; do they have to do these steps every time they log in (i.e., check "connect using different credentials"), or is this one time thing (i.e., if you do this once, they can access the network drives every time they log in)? 

Thanks for your help,

May 1

Answer 5

In a business environment, you can use logon scripts to automatically map drives as each user logs in.

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