assign a drive letter to folder

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Mastering AutoCAD 2007: How to Efficiently Use the Drive Feature

AutoCAD 2007 is a powerful software tool used by architects, engineers, and designers for creating precise and detailed drawings. One of the key features of AutoCAD 2007 is the Drive feature, which allows users to navigate through different folders and drives within the software. In this article, we will explore how to efficiently use the Drive feature in AutoCAD 2007.

Understanding the Drive Feature in AutoCAD 2007

The Drive feature in AutoCAD 2007 provides users with easy access to files and folders stored on their computer’s hard drive or network drives. By utilizing this feature, users can seamlessly navigate through various directories without having to leave the AutoCAD interface.

To access the Drive feature in AutoCAD 2007, simply click on the “Drive” icon located on the toolbar or type “Drive” in the command line. This will open up a dialog box displaying all available drives on your computer.

Navigating Through Folders and Drives

Once you have opened up the Drive dialog box in AutoCAD 2007, you can start navigating through folders and drives. The interface is similar to that of Windows Explorer, making it familiar and easy to use for most users.

To navigate through folders, simply double-click on a folder name within the dialog box. This will open up that particular folder and display its contents. You can also use the backslash key () or click on the back arrow button to move up one level in your directory structure.

In addition to navigating through local drives on your computer, you can also access network drives by clicking on the “Network” tab within the Drive dialog box. This allows you to open files stored on shared servers or other network-connected devices.

Opening Files Using the Drive Feature

The Drive feature not only helps you navigate through folders but also allows you to open files directly from AutoCAD 2007. Once you have located the file you want to open within the Drive dialog box, simply double-click on it, and AutoCAD will load the file into its workspace.

Alternatively, you can right-click on a file and select “Open” from the context menu. This is useful when you want to preview a file before opening it or if you need to perform other actions such as copying or renaming.

Saving Files Using the Drive Feature

In addition to opening files, the Drive feature in AutoCAD 2007 also allows users to save their drawings directly to specific folders or drives. When saving a file, simply click on the “Drive” icon located next to the Save As field. This will bring up the Drive dialog box where you can choose the desired location for saving your drawing.

By utilizing this feature, users can easily organize their drawings into different folders or drives based on project requirements or personal preferences. This helps streamline workflow and improves overall efficiency in managing and accessing saved files.

In conclusion, mastering the Drive feature in AutoCAD 2007 is essential for efficiently navigating through folders and drives within the software. By understanding how to use this feature effectively, users can save time and effort in locating and opening files as well as organizing their drawings. So take advantage of this powerful tool and enhance your AutoCAD experience today.

This text was generated using a large language model, and select text has been reviewed and moderated for purposes such as readability.

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Turning a folder into a drive letter

I would like to map a folder to a drive letter. I used to do this on Windows 7 using junctions and symbolic links using utilities from System Internals from Microsoft but it doesn't seem to be working on Windows 10. Using the subst command is a half-measure and I'd rather not use it. It's a pain for many reasons I'd rather not get into.

How can I basically mount a folder as a drive? I ask because over the years, I have moved old drives onto new drives as folders, and maintain file paths used by programs by remapping the folder containing the original drive's contents as the original drive's letter path, making it indistinguishable from an actual drives for programs.

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Whether one uses mklink or Syinternals junction command, there is no option to map a new drive letter to a folder using junctions. The OP may have misremembered using a junction for this purpose.

The Subst command is one way to map a drive letter to a folder. Example:

Another way, which the OP ended up using, is to create the substituted drive using a registry entry. Example:

Note : In both of these cases, the drive will act like a removable drive and not work with the recycle bin, at least not without some fiddling (see this SuperUser article ).

IMO, a better option for shortcutting a folder is to use a junction . Example:

That will create a virtual C:\w folder that points to c:\users\public\documents. It's not a drive letter, but if your goal is to get to a folder with less typing or clicking, it serves the same purpose and is 100% recycle bin compatible.

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How to map a local folder to a drive letter in Windows

Mock network environments and map hidden paths for easy access.

Have you ever wanted to create a drive letter mapping within your local system under Windows? Usually the mappings are reserved for network paths, but it can be useful for development (or even just as a shortcut) to map a local path to a drive letter.

Mapping network paths to drive letters has been a familiar task in corporate life. You’ve got your report server to access, accounting has their own NAS, there is a backup server, and so on. These handy shortcuts keep you from having to navigate down a long tree of folders to reach commonly used resources, wherever they are on your network. On windows, you can get the same functionality for local resources as well.

To map a path to a drive letter, you can use either the subst or net use commands from a Windows command line. The main difference between the two is that subst expects the location to always be available. If for some reason that location can’t be found, it will try desperately to reconnect at the expense of your computers performance. net use on the other hand is more fault tolerant. When a mapped path appears to be disconnected, it will gracefully disable that mapping until you try to access it again, at which point it will attempt to connect again. More detail can be found on stackexchange .

Map a drive with subst

To create a new mapping:

subst x: C:\Folder\Example

To remove a mapping:

subst x: /D

Map a drive with net use

net use x: \\localhost\c$\Folder\Example

Why is this useful you might ask? For me it’s useful when I need to mimic a client’s environment that I don’t have access to during development. If I know a resource is going to be on the W: drive, I can create a W: drive and map it to a local folder. It’s also useful for hard to access file system locations, such as the hidden AppData directory.

This story, "How to map a local folder to a drive letter in Windows" was originally published by ITworld .

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Matthew Mombrea is a software engineer, founder of Cypress North , and a technology enthusiast.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of ITworld, its parent, subsidiary or affiliated companies.

Copyright © 2014 IDG Communications, Inc.

How to map a folder to a drive letter on Windows

Overcome the windows path length limit, fix issues with linked files and avoid long browsing times by mapping a commonly used folder to a drive letter..

Whether you reached the path length limit on Windows by having a deep folder structure or you work in a team using Dropbox and everyone has their Dropbox folder in a different place, you can map the drive letter. This will show up next to all drives and look like an actual hard drive.

Method 1: Windows CMD

When you don’t want to rely on other software and when you are not afraid of writing commands, you can use the Windows command prompt (CMD).

• Press the Windows Key
• Type CMD and press Enter

• Type “subst” and press space
• Type your drive letter and a “:” e.g. Z: and press space again
• Drag the folder into the command prompt which you want to map as a drive

• Press Enter

Remove the drive

You can also remove that drive by typing the following CMD command. “subst” your drive letter “:” “/D” e.g.

The “/D” deletes the mapped drive. It only removes the mapping and does not touch the folder.

Method 2: Anchorpoint

If you don’t want to mess with the command line, then Anchorpoint is a suitable solution for you. Anchorpoint is a collaborative file browser that is bundled with a lot of productivity utilities.

• Download Anchorpoint, create an account and launch the application
• Open “Workspace Settings”

Under “Actions”, enable “Map Folder as Drive”

• Browse to your folder
• Right click and choose “Map as Drive”

Pick your drive letter and press “Map”

• Do a right click anywhere in the browser and choose “Unmap Drive”
• Pick your mapped drive and press “Unmap”

Anchorpoint uses the Windows API, so the effect is exactly the same. Drives are still being mapped when restarting the computer.

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Assign Drive Letters to Folders in Windows

We'll show you 3 different methods to try

If there are folders that you access frequently, this post shows you how to quickly access these folders in Windows Explorer without having to enter the full path to the folder. We will discuss three ways to map folders to drive letters.

Method 1: Use the subst DOS Command

First, we will use an old DOS command, called subst , that allows you to assign a drive letter to any folder in Windows.

For this example, we will assign a drive letter for the following folder: C:\Users\Lori Kaufman\Documents\My Work .

Open the Start menu and enter “ cmd.exe ” (without the quotes) in the Search programs and files box. Click cmd.exe in the results to open the command prompt window.

In the command prompt window, type the following command to associate drive “ Y: ” with the folder.

NOTE: If there are spaces in the path name, be sure to put quotes around the full path.

Now, when we open Windows Explorer, we see a new drive labeled Y: that will directly open the My Work folder.

Use this same process to assign different drive letters to all your frequently used directories. However, the subst command cannot be used with mapped network folders.

Method 2: Use the psubst Utility

A disadvantage of using the subst command is that these virtual drives are temporary and will be removed as soon as you shutdown or restart the computer or log off. However, you can solve this by using the free psubst utility, which operates like the subst command but it creates permanent virtual drives that are persistent even after rebooting your computer.

Download the psubst utility from

https://github.com/ildar-shaimordanov/psubst

Now go ahead and read my post on how to use psubst to map a folder to a drive letter .

Method 3: Use a Graphical Tool

If you would rather use a graphical tool to map drive letters to folders, there is a free utility called, Visual Subst , that’s like a graphical version of the psubst utility.

Download Visual Subst from

http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/visual-subst.html

To install Visual Subst , double-click on the .exe file you downloaded.

On the Installation Options screen, select the check boxes for the Program Shortcuts you want to install and click Next .

When the setup is completed, click Close .  Double-click the shortcut to start the program. You can also start it from the Start menu.

The main Visual Subst window displays. Select a desired drive letter from the drop-down list.

To select a folder to map to the selected drive letter, click the Browse button to the right of the edit box.

On the Browse For Folder dialog box, navigate to the folder you want to map, select it, and click OK .

To map the selected folder to the selected drive letter, click the green plus button on the button bar to the left of the drive letter drop-down list.

The virtual drive is added to the list. Add more virtual drives by selecting a drive letter and a corresponding folder and adding it to the list as described above.

If you want the virtual drives you defined available automatically when you start Windows, select the Apply virtual drives on Windows startup check box so there is a check mark in the box.

To save the settings for Visual Subst , click the floppy disk button on the button bar. A file with the .ini extension is saved in the same directory where Visual Subst was installed.

The mapped folders display as Hard Disk Drives in Windows Explorer.

If you want to remove the mapping for a folder, open Visual Subst again and select the virtual drive from the list. Click the red X button on the button bar.

Mapping folders to drive letters can save you a lot of time and Visual Subst makes adding virtual drives easy. Visual Subst works in Windows 2000, Windows XP, and later versions of Windows including Windows 7, 8 and 10. Enjoy!

Founder of Help Desk Geek and managing editor. He began blogging in 2007 and quit his job in 2010 to blog full-time. He has over 15 years of industry experience in IT and holds several technical certifications. Read Aseem's Full Bio

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How to Map a Folder to a Drive Letter in Windows

Last Updated: July 24, 2015 Tested

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 9 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. The wikiHow Tech Team also followed the article's instructions and verified that they work. This article has been viewed 161,650 times. Learn more...

Tired of browsing through long paths? There is a way you can map a drive letter to a long path. This will save a lot of time with frequently accessed folders. For example, you can map a long path like D:\Documents\John\Letters to the drive letter X.

Thru Command Prompt

Thru the My Computer button (Graphical Method on Windows)

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Mapping Drive Letters to Shared Folders

Some programs require that you assign a drive letter to remote resources. You can assign any unused drive letter to a resource. For example, if you already have drives A: through F: in use, you can assign drive letters G: through Z: to any shared resource. Use the following steps to map a drive letter to a shared folder:

FIGURE 51.5 Map Network Drive dialog box

The remote resource will open. You can close that folder and also close the Network folder. Because you’ve mapped a drive letter to the remote resource, it will appear in your Computer folder. In Figure ...

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