[RESOLVED] Get path of mapped network drive

[chris128]

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:

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:

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

[chris128]

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:

'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

[kleinma]

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.

[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.

[Cavar]

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

[chris128]

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.

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

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

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

[Cavar]

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

[chris128]

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.

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

[Cavar]

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

C

[kleinma]

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

[chris128]

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