Adding shared drive to Windows Library

[jelisagr]

Hi.
I've set up my nas server with a data share that I want to add to my Windows 7 documents library. Of course it says I have to index the network drive and says that I can do that by making it "Always Available Offline". But I can't find where this is possible with my data share. Thanks for any help.

[LA70]

I did the googling for you - http://abendin.hubpages.com/hub/Adding- ... -Windows-7

[nas4fpksky]

I followed the above link and made it work for me.

There are at least two gottchas.

If you create the link to just the network share, \\NAS4FREE, then you get an error if you try to follow the link. You must direct the link to a folder in the share, \\NAS4FREE\MyFolder.

In order to create the link, you must operate the command as Administrator. I brought up the command line terminal by right clicking on the terminal icon and choosing "run as administrator".

Is it necessary to create the link in the C:\Users\user directory?

Here is the basic instructions copied and pasted from the above link:

Adding a Network Directory to a Library

To add a network location to a library, use a symlink to point to the network folder location:

1. Create a local folder in the C:\Users\username\ directory. This can be named anything you want, so long as it is a valid directory name.
2. Add that folder into the library. Open the library from the menu bar, then click on the Includes: # locations link at the top. Click the Add button on the right side and select the folder you just created.
3. Delete the local folder that you created. DO NOT remove it from the library.
4. Start a Command Prompt (Start->Run, type CMD and press Enter).
5. Type the following command: MKLINK /D "LINK" "TARGET". Replace LINK and TARGET with the path of the folder that was just deleted and the path of the network location you wish to add to the library, respectively. For a full explanation of the MKLINK command, type MKLINK /? and hit enter.

If you browse to the C:\Users\Username\ directory, you will now see a symbolic link (symlink) with the same name as the folder that was previously deleted. Exploring this will lead you to the network location that was entered as the target. Open the library, and you should see the network location as a location. Any changes made to the folder in the library will reflect automatically in the network location, and vice versa.

Congratulations, you've just added a network drive to a library without indexing it!