How to Map Network Drives in Windows 7 _ 7 Tutorials

Share onBy Ciprian Adrian Rusen on 01/07/2010

Drive mapping is the procedure through which you can associate a local drive

letter (A to Z, as the ones used by your partitions) with an area on another network

computer (like a shared folder) or internet location (e.g. FTP site). Using drive

mappings can be very useful, especially when working with different operating systems on

the same network. For example, if you use both Windows 7 and Windows XP in your home

network, you cannot take full advantage of the HomeGroup feature. Using drive mappings

can be a pretty good alternative.

Therefore, in this tutorial, I will show how to map a network drive towards a shared folder

over your network and also to an internet location such as an FTP site.

Start the Map Network Drive Wizard

There are several ways to start the 'Map network drive' wizard. One way is to double click on

the Computer shortcut and click on the 'Map network drive' button from the upper toolbar.

How to Map Network Drives in Windows 7

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How to Map Network Drives in Windows 7 | 7 Tutorials http://www.7tutorials.com/how-map-drives-windows-7

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Keep in mind that, if you browse through any partition, the button will disappear. It will only

be available in the default Computer window.

Another alternative is to right click on the Computer icon and select 'Map network drive'. The

'Map network drive' wizard will now start.

Map a Shared Network Folder

First, select the drive letter you want to use for this mapping. Then, click on Browse and

select the network location you want to map.

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In the Browse window, select the computer & the shared folder you want to map to. When

done, click on OK.

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Instead of using the Browse button you can also directly type the location of the shared

folder you want to map. Also, you can navigate to that location in Windows Explorer and

then right click on it and select 'Map network drive'.

If you want Windows 7 to reconnect to this drive at each logon, make sure you check the

box that says 'Reconnect at logon'. Also, if you map a drive to a computer using Windows

Vista or Windows XP, you might also need to connect using a user account defined on that

computer. In this case, check the box that says 'Connect using different credentials'.

When done, click on Finish.


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In some scenarios, as the one mentioned above, you will be asked to enter a username and

password to connect to the network location.

Here there is a very important catch: when you type the username and password, Windows 7

will use your computer as the 'domain'. This can cause problems when trying to access the

network location because you will try to connect to another computer using a user defined

on your computer. And, most probably it won't work. As you can see from the screenshot

below, you need to make sure that the domain field has the name of the computer you are

trying to connect to.


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To do this, in the user name field type the name of the PC you are connecting to, a

backslash ('\' key) and then the user you want to use for the connection. That user must be

defined on the computer you are connecting to. Otherwise it won't work.

If you typed things correctly, you will see that the domain field has changed value to the

computer you are trying to connect to. When done, click on OK.


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If the mapping process worked fine, the newly created drive will open and will become

available in the Computer window and in Windows Explorer.

Map an FTP Site

To map a drive to an FTP site, click on the link that says 'Connect to a Web site that you can

use to store your documents and pictures'.


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A new 'Add Network Location' wizard will start. Click on Next.


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In the next window, click on 'Choose a custom network location'.


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Now it is time to type the location of the FTP site. First type 'ftp://' and then the IP address

or name of the FTP site. If you want to see more examples of how to type the address, click

on the View examples link. When done, click on Next.


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You will then specify a user name for connecting to the FTP site. If your FTP site allows

anonymous connections, leave the 'Log on anonymously' check box ticked. Otherwise,

uncheck it.


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If you unchecked it, type the username in the appropriate field and click on Next.


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Windows 7 now asks you to provide a name for this mapping. Type any name you want and

click on Next.


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To test the newly created mapping, check the box that says 'Open this network location when

I click Finish' and then click on Finish.


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In case you need a username and password to connect to the FTP site a new window will

open, asking you to type both these details. Type them and check the box that says 'Save

password', in case you don't want to enter it every time, and click on 'Log On'.


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The FTP site will now be available directly from the Computer window as a mapped drive.

How to Delete a Mapped Drive

In case you need to delete a previously created drive mapping, check out this tutorial for

complete instructions: How to Delete Mapped Drives in Windows 7. It shows all the

alternatives you have for deleting them both from Windows Explorer and the Command

Prompts.

Conclusion

Making drive mappings in Windows 7 is a not as straightforward as it should be. You can

encounter issues if you are not very careful, so do pay attention to all the instructions in this

tutorial. Also, do take a look on the articles we recommend below. They might help you in

case you have some issues.


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Share on

If you have some tips to share or you encounter issues you need help with, don't hesitate to

leave a comment.

Related articles:

How to Delete Mapped Drives in Windows 7

Connect to a FTP Server from Windows Explorer

How to Troubleshoot Network & Internet Problems

Recommended articles:

Enable Mapping to \\Hostname\C$ Share on Windows 7 or Vista

Discover more: Tutorials Network and

Internet Windows 7

3D Projection MappingBased in Los Angeles. World leader in large-scale projection mapping.

www.PaintScaping.com

Comments

by Joe on 11/02/2010 - 16:28

Some helpful stuff here but I am still having an issue. The PC I am trying to map to does

not have a pwd (it's blank) and I can't get by Win7 asking for it. Any help appreciated.

reply

by Anonymous on 11/15/2010 - 18:40

I need help deleting references to a mapped drive that does not exist anymore reply


17 of 22 4/2/2013 1:34 PM

I can't right click on it in my computer because it's not there. However at startup each

time I get an error message that it can't connect to the mapped drive - duh!

by PYNTEMA on 12/09/2010 - 19:40

Can I also map a subdir in the same system.

eg C:\pic will be mapped to f:

reply

by Ciprian Adrian Rusen on 12/09/2010 - 22:43

You can but it is more complicated: you need to share the "pic" folder with the network

and then map it as a network folder and specify there: \\your computer name\pic.

reply

by PYNTEMA on 01/31/2011 - 15:15

I have tried this, it initially seems to work, but then I get an error that the new drive

letter is not accesible.

reply

by forrestoff on 08/25/2011 - 23:34

subst f: c:\pic

reply

by Vinster on 01/26/2011 - 17:37

My problem was cross domian drive mapping. This was the fix for us.reply


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Local security settings prevented mapping drive.

Start/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Local Security Policy

- Expand Security Settings Local Policies Security Options

- Find: Network Security: : LAN Manager authentication level, set to: Send LM & NTLM

use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated

by bytemon on 03/09/2011 - 19:32

As I read this article, it seems to infer that you can map an FTP site to a drive letter. The

article reads: "To map a drive to an FTP site, you first need to select the drive letter" I

don't believe this is possible - at least not possible by following these instructions. Please

correct me if I am wrong.

reply


You are correct. We have removed the misleading piece of text. Thank you for

highlighting this.

reply

by Anonymous on 03/31/2011 - 17:13

Deleting a mapped drive which you no longer have access to is a head ache.. tried the

gui after explorer hung for several minutes then got the program is not responding

pop-up, and even tried

net use t: /d

at a command prompt, finally had to re-map the drive to a connection that did exist then

remove it...reply


19 of 22 4/2/2013 1:34 PM


This tutorial describes all your alternatives for deleting drive mappings: How to Delete

Mapped Drives in Windows 7.

reply

by Art on 08/04/2011 - 14:52

What if I have two sets of credentials for the same site? For example, I have a personal

account and we have a team account for AutoCAD WS (https://dav.autocadws.com). I set

up a shortcut to my account, but there is no way to get it to prompt again for another set

of credentials without deleting from credential manager and rebooting as far as I can tell.

reply

by haeh on 12/17/2011 - 17:51

i would change the capital letter (X: for exemple) to a smal one, llike (x:).

what can i do this please ?

reply


You cannot do this. Drive letters always have uppercase letters.

reply

by Adhish on 03/21/2012 - 17:56

Thanks!reply


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by Ivy on 06/07/2012 - 00:13

This was extremely helpful and straightforward. Thank you so much!

reply

by karatedog on 06/20/2012 - 15:36

Mapping a drive letter to an FTP does not work. Clicking that link "Connect to a Web site

that you can use..." simply jumps to the network mapping window, you can even close

the drive mapping window.

If you finish the procedure, you will have the connected network drive but without any

letter.

reply

by Larry on 09/14/2012 - 19:35

This was very helpful, worked perfectly. The network drive we needed to access was in a

new system running Windows 7 Home Premium and the desktop trying to access it was

running Windows 7 Home Basic.

This all happened because we replaced and old workstation (starting to have issues) that

was used as a file server with a new Optiplex 790. Workstations running XP were able to

map to the drives on the new system with no issue and we've now cleared the hurdle

with the desktop running Windows 7 but we are having a very similar problem with

trying to map these same network drives to a computer running Vista Home Basic.

The system running Vista Home Basic mapped to the network drives when they were in a

system running Windows 2000 (I told you it was old) without any issues, baffled why they

won't map now. The problem is clearly related to an issue with the user-id we are using.

We can see the network drives on the network but we are not being allowed to accessreply


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them. We have seen lots of information online about this issue but we haven't found a

fix yet. Anybody know the answer to this riddle?

by dreamlahiru on 09/26/2012 - 13:55

Tnx u so Much.....

reply

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How to Map Network Drives in Windows 7 _ 7 Tutorials

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