Windows – Script to disconnect mapped network location

network-sharesscriptwindowswindows-nt-4

I have a user who needs to map a certain network location to drive O:. Every so often, this drive loses it's map to O:, but will show up under different letters, such as H:, K:, and L:. The normal procedure is for him to call Helpdesk (me) to come down and unmap/remap the drive to the proper letter.

During the remap process, I make sure to check the box Remap on login but that setting doesn't seem to take hold.

Is there any way to script this task? Normally, I would use net use /delete \\server\share or net use x: /delete (where x: is the drive letter), but the first one does not work as there is a letter assigned to the path, and the second one doesn't work as the letter it remaps to isn't always the same one.

System is Windows NT (we use specialized software that hasn't had an update in a while).

Best Answer

As long as there are no other shares you are trying to save you can use the following in a batch or logon script:

 NET USE * /delete
 NET USE O: \\server\share

This will remove all assigned (*) shares and set it to the drive/path you want.

Related Solutions

Command Line – Extract Drive Letter for New Mapped Drive in .bat

Use the commands pushd and popd.

pushd \\server\share will create a temporary drive (starting from Z: and going backwards till it finds an available letter) and go into it. When you're done, popd will delete the temporary drive and get you back where you were.

C:\Users\Snark>pushd /?
Stores the current directory for use by the POPD command, then
changes to the specified directory.

PUSHD [path | ..]

  path        Specifies the directory to make the current directory.

If Command Extensions are enabled the PUSHD command accepts
network paths in addition to the normal drive letter and path.
If a network path is specified, PUSHD will create a temporary
drive letter that points to that specified network resource and
then change the current drive and directory, using the newly
defined drive letter.  Temporary drive letters are allocated from
Z: on down, using the first unused drive letter found.

C:\Users\Snark>popd /?
Changes to the directory stored by the PUSHD command.

POPD


If Command Extensions are enabled the POPD command will delete
any temporary drive letter created by PUSHD when you POPD that
drive off the pushed directory stack.

Windows – Disconnect from samba share

Right-clicking on the drive in My Computer and saying disconnect is the most reliable way that I've found. Problems usually arise when you have a file on one of the shares held open by some process.

However, rather than disconnect when you need to access the shares as another user why don't you add a netbios alias to samba so you can use the shares with 2 different users simultaneously?

For example, if your server was named "servername" you could add this line in /etc/samba/smb.conf:

netbios aliases = altservername

Restart samba and you can then connect to \\altservername\share with a new user and windows won't care. Connecting to the IP address would probably work too but this has always seemed easier to me.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Command Line – Extract Drive Letter for New Mapped Drive in .bat

Windows – Disconnect from samba share

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