Open dialog does not show network drives.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jerry K
  • Start date Start date
J

Jerry K

The standard open dialog does not show network drives in some applications.
It does in notepad/office apps. Is there some security setting that
controls that?

Thank you.
JerryK
 
Jerry K said:
The standard open dialog does not show network drives in some
applications. It does in notepad/office apps. Is there some security
setting that controls that?

It depends on the specific application.

The Open dialogue box is enabled by calling GetOpenFilename() in
comdlg32.dll. However, when it is called this function takes an OPENFILENAME
structure as a parameter; and this structure contains a very large number of
options which the programmer can use to customise how the Open File dialogue
appears; what directories it can access; which file types it will recognise,
and so on.

If an application writer has coded the OPENFILENAME struct in their app to
not show network drives in an Open File dialogue, there may not be much you
can do about it, apart from:
- check to see if that specific app has some custom setting, coded by the
programmer, to enable network drives; or
- open a change request with the application's vendor, to allow network
drives to be visible.

Another common "gotcha" is that network drive mappings are specific to each
user context. If you map a drive as one user, and then run an app as a
different user, you won't automatically see the mapped drives created by the
first user. This includes running an application "As Administrator" - even
if you're *already* the Administrator, this gives you a new, more privileged
user token, so you won't see the drives you had mapped earlier.

Which application are you using, which doesn't show network drives? Can you
reach the network by entering a UNC name? (eg
"\\myserver\myshare\documents", etc).

Cheers
Andrew
 
Back
Top