mapping a drive or not

[Eric]

I have a home network that consist of two XP Pro machines
and one 98 machine. Right now, the network is setup and
the folders are shared on each machine so that each
shared folders will be available to other machines. I
been looking into Mapping A Network Drive and doing
searches, but I'm not sure what the advantages it would
be, nor if mapping a drive will be noticable and make any
difference to a end user.

Can anybody explain this?

 

[smythers]

searches, but I'm not sure what the advantages it would
be, nor if mapping a drive will be noticable and make any
difference to a end user.

Some programs will not recognize a network drive, eg.,
//Computer/c-drive/folder. However, if you map the drive, the program
can recognize e:/folder.

If users are not familiar with networks, the drive will "look" like a
local drive once it is mapped.