Mapping a network drive in Win7 Home Premium to a domain

[Mark Talbot]

Has anyone figured out and proven to themselves how to map a network domain drive in win7 Home premium?

I am trying to finish setting up my mother-in-laws pc which includes tying into my server remotely to a dedicated account.

I guess microsoft decided they could use this feature to make people upgrade to win7 pro,... for more mula.

But I am hoping for a workaround from those that may know.

[south]

Yes, you need to have "pro" to join to a domain. Been that way since win2k. You can still access the shares on the network though, just no active directory integration.

Don't have a copy of home "premium" (haha) handy, so might be slightly off, but something like this should work:
Make a batch file something like this, then put it in the run portion of the HKLM/run section as a string:

net use m: \\hostcomputername\share /user \\domainname\username password /y

Or, just create a username on the server the same as the win7 home system, with the same password, and map the drive.

Send me a pm if this doesn't work, and I'll write something that works tomorrow at the office when I have one in front of me.

Incidentally, samba is soooo much easier to work with / migrate / backup than windoze server....

[Mark Talbot]

Yes, you need to have "pro" to join to a domain. Been that way since win2k. You can still access the shares on the network though, just no active directory integration.

Don't have a copy of home "premium" (haha) handy, so might be slightly off, but something like this should work:
Make a batch file something like this, then put it in the run portion of the HKLM/run section as a string:

net use m: \\hostcomputername\share /user \\domainname\username password /y

Or, just create a username on the server the same as the win7 home system, with the same password, and map the drive.

Send me a pm if this doesn't work, and I'll write something that works tomorrow at the office when I have one in front of me.

Incidentally, samba is soooo much easier to work with / migrate / backup than windoze server....

Well I know it worked on her old XP box, but I replaced that old slow dog, and was having a fit getting it to connect on the new box.

I will give it a try tomorrow, thanks. Worst case I spend the extra 70 bucks to upgrade. (but that just feels so much like extortion ya know)

[katherine]

Do like South suggests.
You don't need to be on a domain to access the share on the other computer.
That is assuming your computer will be on the same LAN.

If you want to access the share remotely (outside premises) then you'll have to configure your router for that, set up port forwarding and of course your ISP must not filter the Netbios ports.
Not sure that is what you are trying to do.

[Mark Talbot]

Do like South suggests.
You don't need to be on a domain to access the share on the other computer.
That is assuming your computer will be on the same LAN.

If you want to access the share remotely (outside premises) then you'll have to configure your router for that, set up port forwarding and of course your ISP must not filter the Netbios ports.
Not sure that is what you are trying to do.

I have a server on my lan configured with a firewall of course, and accessable through a DNS forwarder domain on the internet to my isp ip. It is an https SSL connection with password and username authentication required.

This worked and was easy to setup on a remote pc using XP. It would require the username and password to access as normal.

The Win7 Home box apparently doesnt allow for this through any user settings or configs. (read alot of pissed off people on the web about this exact problem)

The published Microsoft solution is to upgrade to Win7 Pro or higher as it allows the easy setup.

I can upgrade her pc to Win7 Pro, but thats another $70 dollars. (I am a cheap bastard)

Plus I have read of some persons being able to make it work, but havent locked on to a solution for me yet.
One person out there evn suggested a registry tweak. (But I am not so gutsy without hearing from someone exactly how they did that)



south - didnt get over there today, hopefully tomorrow