Network Drive Control 1.67

Network Drive Control 1.67
File Size : 1.8 Mb

Network Drive Control (NDC) for Windows Vista, 7, 8 & higher, both 32-bit & 64-bit, is an example of a utility I wrote to solve a frustrating problem I frequently encountered, namely wanting my network servers, both at work & home, mapped to Windows drives in a network specific manner. While one can tell Windows to try to map all of the drives at logon, I didn't like the long delays waiting for the time outs of the drive mapping for the networks that are not connected. (i.e. Waiting for the mapping of the home network drives to timeout when on my work network, and vice versa.) So I wrote my own utility which would examine the network environment after I logged in, and based on what network it found itself on, it would only attempt to map those drives it knew were on that network. Basically, I wanted the map network drives on login to function equivalently to the way the Windows "default printer" does by being network specific. The short of it is I wrote a two module program to do just that, and hence Network Drive Control was born.

Network Drive Control allows you to configure the automatic mapping of network drives when you logon based on the network(s) to which you are connected. And example would be to have your laptop automatically connect and map one set of network drives when at home, and another set of network drives when at work or school, and none if it detects that the PC is connected to a network where no mappings have been configured.
Network Drive Control has no limit to the number of networks or drives that can be configured (except Windows built in limits), and drive letters can be redundant. i.e. If on one network you like a resource to be mapped to drive, say, X:, and on a different network you'd like to have a different resource also mapped to X:, you can configure Network Drive Control to do so.

Network Drive Control utilizes Windows features built into Windows Vista through 10 (both 32-bit and 64-bit).

Network Drive Control is free and has a built in help function.

We add the usual weasel words that there are no warranties that this software will work correctly or will even run on your machine, and that you use it at your own risk.

Note: Cisco QuickVPN, used by some Cisco small business routers, does not allow the use of network names, and so Network Drive Control won't be able to identify the remote network. This is an flaw in Cisco QuickVPN, not in Network Drive Control. Cisco's AnyConnect used with Cisco's enterprise class routers does not have this issue.

Whats New
1. Switched the development machine to Windows 11 Pro.
2. Fixed bug where NDC would sometimes report Windows 11 as Windows 10. Of course it reported Windows 11 correctly when run on Window 10 when tested in my Windows 11 VM, but now that the NDC development has been moved to a bare metal Windows 11 system, it misreported it.
3. Added a checkbox to each line that tells NDC not to automatically map the drive even if the PC is on the correct network for that drive. I added this mainly to help with trouble shooting. I found that it was useful because I have an occasional need to map the USB backup drives that are on my NAS. One could always have used NDC this way simply by setting up mappings with manually entered nonexistent Network names, and then using the "Connect" button. But being able to set the mapping up correctly so one can automatically connect if need be, but just toggle the function on & off, is less of a kludge.
4. Updated help files.

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