I have a very specific case here where a piece of software needs to access files on the network but will only take files coming from local drives, not the network or mapped network drives. It will also ignore symbolic links so the "mklink" solution will not work in this case, but that does not create a local drive anyway, simply a folder/shortcut.
How can I take a mapped network drive and make it appear as a local, physical drive?
Best Answer
Is this some sort of performance testing software, I can't think up many situations where software would restrict the use of a normal mapped network drive.
I have found a program that might do what you are looking for though. http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/visual-subst.html
Perhaps you could setup an ISCSI device on your network storage device ? This seems to be supported by windows 7 and would allow a more natural solution.
Fair warning there is something to be said about fooling windows into thinking you have a local drive that is on the network and it starts treating it like one you might cause some inherent serious slowdowns on your overall PCs performance if not setup well ( I cannot vouch for any of the software ).
Some very old issues on server fault go into this for example: https://serverfault.com/questions/30669/winxp-map-network-location-to-local-folder
Please let me know if it helps you.