Do NOT Map a Network Drive to SharePoint Libraries

[mda1125]

Recently Mike Walsh posted this in regards to a question asked if files were
stored in 2 locations. I"ve tried the below and can successfuly see my
documents in the IE interface as well as the Explorer mapped drive view by
using the following:

local harddrive

Net use X: \\servername\xxx\doclib

where http://servername/xxx/doclib/AllItems.aspx is the web address.

Then X: contains all the same files as are actually stored in the WSS
database for that doc lib.

You should I suspect amend them only using the WSS UI though.

Issue:

Mike is right. There's 3 ways to view your shared documents.

1) View via the SharePoint UI
2) Map a network drive
3) Map a web folder

Wanna see something neat?

Try this:

Take a test document and upload it to the shared folders.

Edit it:

1) In the SharePoint UI. Save it. It's fine right?
2) Map a Web Folder. Edit it. Save. Still fine.
3) Map a Network drive. Edit it. Save. Gone.

What?

That's right. If you EDIT the document in a mapped network drive, which you
will see the folders and files, you save it, it says OKAY and then it's gone.

This does not happen with a mapped web folder or the SharePoint UI. But for
some reason, it allows you to map a network folder but editing the documents
that way is really a bad idea. You will lose the document. It deletes it.

Anybody have comments on this?

[Daniel Larson (www.portalbuilder.org)]

That may have to do with check-in functions... you may need to go to the web
UI and check in the changes before it shows up in the WEBDAV view.

I also recommend not mapping drives as this can take network resources and
is just unnecessary. Why not just make a shortcut of a network place?

Daniel Larson
http://www.portalbuilder.org

[mda1125]

A shortcut to a network place is a great idea. It's the web folder thing I
was mentioning. And using the UI is the best option.

It's just bad that people can map a network drive as some users have now
figured out how to do it.

There's no errors. It just blows away your document.

[Mike Walsh]

Thanks for putting this as a new message.

It's something we all need to be aware of.

(Pity I can't think of a useful FAQ item title for this - the problem is
that it's a problem needing a solution only when you've done it and there is
no solution.
On second thoughts I have an item on bulk document transfers including this
net use statement, I'll try to remember to add a warning to that)

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland
WSS FAQ at http://wss.collutions.com
Please post questions to the newsgroup only.

"mda1125" <mda...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C3893CD0-4265-4188...@microsoft.com...

[David McKenzie]

I am confused.
This post alarmed me;
If useres have the ability to inadvertantly delete date, they surely will.
But:
I cannot map a document library as shown below
I have tried a few document libraries on two WSS servers here and keep
getting

System error 67 has occurred.
The network name cannot be found.

Servers: WSS SP1
Desktop: W2K SP4, IE6 SP1
Office: XP SP3 (if it matters)

"mda1125" <mda...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C3893CD0-4265-4188...@microsoft.com...

[Mike Walsh]

You need Office 2003 on the client. Do you have that ?

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland

"David McKenzie" <DavidM...@noemail.nospam> wrote in message
news:uvKQbqk%23EHA...@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...

[James B]

You can't map a drive if you use Group Policy to block out drive letters
which is a very good practice that I use. Keeps users from doing what you
are suggesting, creating shares all over the network to other PC's, etc and
best of all those nasty little thumbdrives, well plug it in all you want but
your not going to get a drive letter assigned to it so your not goingto be
copying company data to it!

"mda1125" <mda...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:AB5F1B7E-1354-486E...@microsoft.com...

[David McKenzie]

Only FrontPage 2003, the rest is Office XP

"Mike Walsh" <englant...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Oy4$SDl%23EHA...@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

[Mike Walsh]

I have a feeling that you need a "real" Office 2003 product to get this
method to work. Real in this sense meaning Excel, Word and probably
PowerPoint.

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland

"David McKenzie" <DavidM...@noemail.nospam> wrote in message

news:%23gY7sqi...@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

[David McKenzie]

My reading of the thread is that you need a "real" Office 2003 product to
get this to *break*
^_^
With Office XP, an Network Place gets automagicly built the first time you
select "Explorer View" in WSS.
A little obscure, but our users are happy enough with it

"Mike Walsh" <englant...@hotmail.com> wrote in message

news:eMJWZ6iA...@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...

[Ray Olsons]

I have Office 2003 Professional. However, when I try to map the drive, I keep getting "System error 67". I am trying it on the same box as WSS - so it is Win2003 with Office 2003 w/ Frontpage 2003, and Web client service running.

 

net use X: "http://localhost:8080/Shared documents"

 

gives system error 67.

 

Any ideas?

 

"Mike Walsh" <englant...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:eMJWZ6iA...@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...

[Bil Simser [MVP]]

I've successfully done the "net use..." from a remote client to a
server. A couple of things I noticed:

1. Remote client running XP SP2
2. Remote client running Office 2003 Enterprise (but I think the minimum
you need is Professional)
3. Have rights to browse directories on WSS site

Running from localhost means you're running it on a W2k3 server and
you've got Office 2003 on the server. Personally I wouldn't run a client
product on a server unless you're just asking for trouble (even in a
development situation). IE behaves very differently on a server than
your workstation just because of all the restricted security (basically
it asks you for an exception for EVERY site, even localhost sometimes).

Also you're connecting to a non-standard port which may have an issue
(not sure if WebDAV cares or not). As well not sure whether you need a
%20 in where the space is in your doclib name (my doclibs are all named
with no spaces initially then I rename them to be "pretty").

I would suggest you try it from a workstation running XP and ensure you
have browse directory rights on the doclib or site.

--
Bil Simser
http://weblogs.asp.net

"Ray Olsons" <rol...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:rol...@yahoo.com:

[Mike Walsh]

You seem to have read my message wrongly

 

net use X: \\localhost\xxx\DocLib

 

is the command

 

I added in the additional info about http://localhost/xxx/DocLIb only so people would know how to work out the second part of the net use statement.

 

Also note that it is not happy with spaces in the path anywhere so try it on a docLib where the name doesn't have spaces or other odd characters in it.

 

Then try it a couple of times. Sometimes I've noticed it doesn't take first time (don't ask me why)

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland

"Ray Olsons" <rol...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:ecYKmVmA...@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...

[mda1125]

If you open a document in this view and PRINT it, once you close the file,
it's gone.

At least you'll have the printed copy!

[Mike Walsh]

Ooh, nasty.

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland

"mda1125" <mda...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:019EAABF-80E2-4949...@microsoft.com...

[mda1125]

I think I'll have to open a PSS ticket.

This could be annoying with document restores if people start doing this.

[Bil Simser [MVP]]

Has anyone (besides the original poster) seen these effects? Not to play
devils advocate here, but I have yet to see SharePoint gobble up
anything like this, unless it's a user clicking delete or something.

--
Bil Simser
http://weblogs.asp.net

"mda1125" <mda...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:mda...@discussions.microsoft.com:

[mda1125]

Not a bad assumption since a user brought me this error.

But I am able to re-produce it every time.

If I edit the document and save it: It's instantly deleted and my explorer
view refreshed.

If I print the document and close it, I need to hit F5 to refresh the view

and then it's gone.

I'm able to get a number of people on Windows XP SP1 to re-produce this. We
can't all be hitting the delete key.

I've used remote desktop sharing via SameTime and since the screen is slow,
I can clearly see the file being saved to the exact same location.

And then it's gone. Not to my recycle bin. Or the server somewhere. I
have no idea where it goes. But the last save location is exactly the place
it was before editing or printing it.

[Mike Walsh]

I've seen a couple of reports earlier. (Opening and then amending and saving
back to the "drive" and the document is deleted)

I don't *think* they (too) came from mda1125

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland

"Bil Simser [MVP]" <bsi...@shaw.ca> wrote in message
news:OX5n4jzA...@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

[Bil Simser [MVP]]

Okay. Probably logging a PSS would be a good idea. Unfortunately I just
can't reproduce it in any of my environments but would like to see what
MS says.

[Ray Olsons]

Thanks everybody for the answers. net use does work with UNC (\\localhost) format. However, it does not work when the WSS site is on a port other than 80. In my case, WSS is hosted on port 8080. I could not make net use work with \\localhost:8080 format. Don't know if it's WebDAV limitation, WSS limitation, or UNC syntax limitation. Again, if anybody has definitive info on this, it will be very much appreciated.

 

 

"Mike Walsh" <englant...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:#8lRD3pA...@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

[spoo...@gmail.com]

We have seen this issue sporadically. We finally found this message and
were able to reproduce it with the steps listed:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices/browse_frm/thread/11c43c0182ef504a/f615981347de345f?q=document+(disappeared+OR+disappears)+sharepoint&_done=%2Fgroups%3Fq%3Ddocument+(disappeared+OR+disappears)+sharepoint%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26c2coff%3D1%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#f615981347de345f

[Mike Price]

Although I am unable to reproduce the behavior as described above I was
able to reproduce the behavior as detailed in the post below.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices/browse_frm/thread/11c43c0182ef504a/f615981347de345f?q=document+(disappeared+OR+disappears)+sharepoint&_done=%2Fgroups%3Fq%3Ddocument+(disappeared+OR+disappears)+sharepoint%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26c2coff%3D1%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Dwg%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#f615981347de345f

Has anyone called Microsoft on this? If so what was their response?

[Mike Price]

Everyone,

Microsoft has a Word hotfix that fixes the behavior where word docs
disappear out of a SharePoint Document Library. Here is the KB article.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;884050

[whitejm3]

OK so I read through this entire thread because I want to do opposite. I
want to use the share point website to browse regular shared folders. Why?
because the boss wants to be able to scan documents into a set of folders and
have the users browse to them with out having to train the person scanning on
how to upload to the share point database. Any ideas? I've been trying but
get either page cannot be displayed or I get an error loading the web page.
Thanks from a newbie,
John

[Mike Walsh]

Thanks for giving us this.

I've added it to the WSS FAQ site's KB Articles section in the hope that
searches on the WSS FAQ for this problem will throw it up.

It was a toss-up between Category WebDav or Word 2003 so I plumped for
WebDav.

Mike Walsh, Helsinki, Finland
WSS FAQ at http://wss.collutions.com

Please reply to the newsgroup

"Mike Price" <Mike...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
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