Windows: Map network drive to a folder

The default behavior of mapping a network drive does exactly what it sounds like it does: it maps a network share to a local drive. Sometimes, you may want to map a network share to a folder, or subfolder, on your local system. This can be done pretty easily.

Open up a command prompt, as Administrator, and type the following:

mklink /d “c:\path\to\local\folder” “\\path\to\network\share”

Replace “c:\path\to\local\folder” with the path on the local drive where you’d like the network share to be mounted, and replace “\\path\to\network\share” with the actual path to the network share.

If you already have the credentials for this network share saved, or it’s a public share, you’re all set. Otherwise, you’ll be prompted for credentials. You can save these the same as you would save them when you map a network drive the normal way.

This can work very well in conjunction with mapping multiple shares on a target machine with different accounts.