[RESOLVED] Get path of mapped network drive

I was expecting this to be easy but it seems that it is not... all I want to do is loop through all drives on a computer and if the drive is a network drive then get the UNC path that this network drive maps to. Simples.

I was expecting to just do this:

vb.net Code:

For Each drv In IO.DriveInfo.GetDrives()
            If drv.DriveType = IO.DriveType.Network Then
                MessageBox.Show(drv.RootDirectory.ToString)
            End If
Next

but this just outputs the drive letters like so:

Code:

---

F:
G:
I:
'etc

---

So does anyone know of any way to get the path that the network drive maps to (e.g \\server\someshare\somedirectory) without using WMI ?

Thanks
Chris

Managed to get this done with a Windows API but if anyone has a better solution that uses managed code I would prefer that! :)

Here's my code for anyone that is interested:

vb Code:

'Declared at class level
<DllImport("mpr.dll")> _
Public Shared Function WNetGetConnection(ByVal lpLocalName As String, ByVal lpRemoteName As StringBuilder, ByRef lpnLength As Integer) As Integer
End Function
 
'Then to use it in a method:
For Each drv In IO.DriveInfo.GetDrives()
            If drv.DriveType = IO.DriveType.Network Then
                Dim UncPath As New StringBuilder(255)
                WNetGetConnection(drv.Name.Replace("\", ""), UncPath, UncPath.Capacity)
                MessageBox.Show(drv.Name & " maps to " & UncPath.ToString)
            End If
Next

I know I have answered this, but I can't remember if it was the same solution you came up with.. I will see if I can find it.

Yeah the solution I had also uses the same API call to WNetGetConnection.

This API call only works in Windows 2000 and up, but I would hope at this point that doesn't matter.

You can use the System.Management namespace to get this info, but from my testing it returns the following for a mapped drive, so you would need to clean it up.

file://172.168.0.115/backup

and

file://terastation1/backup

The first was a drive I mapped using the IP and the 2nd I used the server name.

I don't know if it's any better than doing what you did, but here the link I found using Google. It's C#, but easy to convert. You want the "GetUniversalName" method at the top of the page.

Here's a link to the Win32_NetworkConnection Class that lists the various data you can query. I used the RemotePath to get the values above.

Hope it helps,
C

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kleinma

Yeah the solution I had also uses the same API call to WNetGetConnection.

This API call only works in Windows 2000 and up, but I would hope at this point that doesn't matter.

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Ah well thanks for the confirmation anyway and yeah all of our clients are XP so no worries there :)

Quote:

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You can use the System.Management namespace to get this info, but from my testing it returns the following for a mapped drive, so you would need to clean it up.

file://172.168.0.115/backup

and

file://terastation1/backup

The first was a drive I mapped using the IP and the 2nd I used the server name.

I don't know if it's any better than doing what you did, but here the link I found using Google. It's C#, but easy to convert. You want the "GetUniversalName" method at the top of the page.

Here's a link to the Win32_NetworkConnection Class that lists the various data you can query. I used the RemotePath to get the values above.

Hope it helps,
C

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Thanks but as I mentioned in the first post, I want to do this without using WMI ;)

Sometimes my reading suck due to my extreme laziness.

For another non WMI way you could just check the registry under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Network key. It will list out all current mapped drives and there's a RemotePath string value that contains the UNC path.

I am not sure if that registry key differs per OS though.

CT

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cavar

For another non WMI way you could just check the registry under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Network key. It will list out all current mapped drives and there's a RemotePath string value that contains the UNC path.

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Interesting, but I have just tested it out and it seems that this is only true for persistent network drives (ie drives that you check the "reconnect at logon" box for) and I want to capture all network drives, especially as some of our logon scripts do not map the drives as persistent. Thanks for the suggestion though, I appreciate it but it looks like I'm going to have to stick to the API for now :thumb:

Yeah, it appears the ones that you don't reconnect to at login aren't stored in that location, bummer.

C

My guess is any managed code to do this would just wrap that API anyway.

Yeah but isnt that what an awful lot of managed code does? I would rather use something that Microsoft have written to wrap their APIs than declare and use the APIs myself any day :)