Ran out of letters to map to

I've got all my available drive letters on my workstation mapped to partitions on my machine and (mostly) other partitions/devices on my office network. Are there any solutions to keeping access to all these shares and at the same time freeing up more letters to map to? i.e. now if I try to map another hard drive I get "(none)" in the drive letter column.

Marty

 

Then you need to get the Chinese version of Windows, as they have over 3000 letters in their alphabet. Kidding. Couldnt help myself.

I would suggest you dont need so many partitions and mappings. Consolidate some of your mappings to fewer shares, and maybe instead of having so many partitions, have more folders and/or shares on a fewer partitions. Make some of the partitions a folder even. You can even have folders with names like a, b, c, d.....on any drive or partition.

Bottom line, your setup is not organised properly and you shouldnt need to get anywhere near using all the mapping letters. You do not have to map to something to access it as a shared folder on a network. You really only have should map drives if programs need static data paths from the application to its data on the other PC/s, or for shares that are accessed a lot by the user.

Backing up in your office must be a nightmare if all these mappings are to data.

If you need further advice in this area, ask.

 

Fair enough Dez. But if box 'c' has partitions C: - F: and I'd like access to all of those how can I consolidate them so they are all accessible via a single share?

Short of repartitioning the hard drive(s) on box 'c'.

Marty

 

One way i suppose is you could create a folder on one PC on the network of shortcuts (not mappings) to various shares (which may be shared folders or shared partitions on other PCs and or on the same PC). Share this folder. Then people can access many shared folders from one shared folder. You could do this as many times as you like. You may have 5 shared folders with 5 shortcuts in each to cover 25 shares.

If you need the mappings more for applications needing data paths to access data, you need to consolidate your software onto a server, maybe even a terminal server.

 

I'm running Apache 2 on my XP workstation and don't plan on upgrading to IIS or other MS server technology.

By terminal server do you mean something like WinVNC? I didn't realize that had an API - plus it's not very convenient for XP (home) boxes because accounts tend to get timed out.

Marty

 

Yes, Terminal server is in effectively a very good VNC system.

marty, it may be a good idea if you explained what you are doing with these mappings as I am very surprised to hear of someone needing twenty or more as you suggest. My first reaction is that there is something wrong with the way you are going about things.

Be aware that many applications will treat mapped drives as though they are local drive and start interegating (excuse spelling - that can't be right) files on the mapped drves when they see them. For example Windows Explorer tends to check through files on all drives when it opens. If you have a lot of mappings, that can cause a signifcant loss of performance. In most cases across a LAN, mappings are good. But you can go mad with them and get into a mess if you are not careful.

 

I'm trying to do as much as possible from my XP workstation, including the really handy fact that I can see available space per share on explorer in the blink of an eye.

I've got six boxes, some running windows (xp, me, 98) and some running unix (fbsd, linux).

Marty

 

marty - if you have run out of drive letters to map, you need to consider some sort of good 3rd party managment solution.

Hyena is my absoute favorite for managing a network without having to leave my desk. Not particularly cheap but IMO worth every penny they charge. There is a 30 day free trial available from the site so I'd strongly suggest you give it a test drive.

It is pretty windows-centric and will only work with samba shares on Nix boxes but it is unbeatable as a general management tool for windows networks and the recent versions are very AD aware. Also has a great export tool for most any sort of data you want to take a good look at.

In many cases I like the look I get from Hyena better than the one I'd get from the console and even use it to look at aspects of my local PC like services, the various WMI pieces, drive space, share info, etc.

It runs around $200 for a single user license, standard version. No limit to the number of PCs you can view/control and no client piece needed unless you want to use VNC for remote control since that would require the VNC client piece on all the machines.

The standard version does most of what you would want unless you need to remote manage exchange server or need WMI control since standard will only report on it.

 

I agree with Newt, some management/audit/inventory software is an excellent way of doing what you are trying to do without mapping all those drives. However, I don't think you have to pay as much as that.

I run a fairly small network (main branch only 25 seats) and use LogInventory. About 6 months ago I was able to find a version that was free for 25 seats. However, it is so useful that we'll be upgrading to the latest version as the network expands, and paying for it then.

This system uses a small app run at each client and sends data to a central repository. I've put the app in the login script for the network, so each PC runs the app at logon - keeping the data up to date. The software then loads the information into a database that you can interogate using the interface or with SQL type commands - very useful. It logs information like hard disk size and free space. But also much more: CPU, Service pack, OS, and best of all a list of all software being run. My main use of it is to keep on top of the software being run on the network to make sure our licensing is up to date.

Unfortunately I think it is Windows only, so might not suit your requirement. However, while searching for the LogInventory software in my collection, I found this: iInventory which appears to do a similar job for Linux and Mac as well a Windows systems. Even better, if you go to the download page you'll find that there is a ten user version available for free. I think it might be just what you are looking for. If not do a google search for inventory software. There are a lot of alternative software out there to try.