samba - Jun 2005 - Slightly OT: Making Windows Aps Think Mapped Drives are Local

Sorry if this is slightly off topic for the  Samba list, but if anybody knows 
the answer to this 
question, it's probably  a Samba person... 

Does anybody know if there a way to make Windows XP  think a "mapped
network
drive" is a "local drive", or at least get Windows to  report to
all
applications that ask that a network drive is a local drive? There  must be a
whole
bunch of registry settings that keep track of these things.  

I pose this question because I have a number of multimedia applications  that 
will only store and access media files (sound, video, etc.) if those files  
are located on a "local drive". However, I am quite sure that ALL of
these
applications will work fine if the media files are on a network drive. 

I  believe the above statement because newer versions of the same 
applications do  NOT block using network drives and they work perfectly. At the
time the
older  versions came out, the manufacturer sold its own networked storage and  
intentionally blocked access to 3rd party storage. 

Good hints or clues  or suggestions would be very much appreciated. 

Andy Liebman

Actually, there is probably very little registry related which tracks this. The
API in C/C++ is GetDriveType.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/fileio/fs/getdrivetype.asp

So the thing which actually tracks this is the IFS portion of the Windows
kernel... and I don't think you are going to be tinkering down in there.
This code might populate registry entries talking
about what volumes have been mounted, etc... but you are fix'n to make the
code lie in certain situations, which is a pretty duct tapeish way to accomplish
what you desire to do. ("Two wrongs do not
make a right" kind of thinking...)

-- 
Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/

Remove the upper case letters NOSPAM to contact me directly.