TIP: Using Mapped network Drives in MP

[infy]

Why use Mapped network drives over a UNC path ( \\<servername>\<sharename>\<directory> )?
It decreases access time.

Especially if you set your Fileserver never to disconnect the client. ( net config server /autodisconnect:-1 more info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297684 )

However Windows is crap even if you set your networkdrives to reconnect after reboot they will very likely not work in mediaportal after a reboot.
A solution for this is to use the following code and put it in a .bat (batch) file and place the batch file in your startup folder (start/all programs/startup).
You can add as many networkdrives as you want.

 @echo off
net use Z: /d 2>NUL 1>Nul
C:\wait.exe 6
net use Z: "\\Fileserver\Mp3 Collection" /persistent:yes 1>NUL 
end

The 2>NUL & 1>NUL incombination with @echo off completely hide the commands being executed and the output they create.
wait.exe can be easily found on the net (use google). It's to slow down the mounting of the drives by a few seconds. So that windows has enough time to load the network stuff.

I hope this is helpful to some.

[GSteele]

UNC Paths used to work but since I changed to 2.3 RC3 it's really slow to build a list containing UNC paths. The mapped drives is fine as long as all networked PC's are on when your MP PC starts up.

[automated]

Thanks, this helped me heaps.