Mapped drive not recognized by Win 10 Preview

[SteelersRock]

Using TC 8.51a x64 on Windows 10 x64 Preview any build version, when mapping a drive to a network share - it is not recognized by Windows 10. Mapped drive is not visible in the Windows File Explorer, however it is accessible inside Total Commander. One must use TC to disconnect from the network share because Windows is not aware that a mapped drive exists. The same holds true if the mapped drive is created outside of TC by right-clicking This PC and selecting Map Network Drive.... TC doesn't know it's mapped but Windows File Explorer knows about it. Must be a new feature.

[Dalai]

Do you run TC as administrator? If so, stop doing that, or rather do it only if necessary.

Network drives are user-specific, they have been since Windows 2000 (maybe even NT4). This also applies to processes running as administrator on Vista and higher since the process uses a different "user" (tech note: it's a different token, and network drives are bound to that).

You can even see this in CMD with the

Code: Select all

net use

command. Just try it: launch one CMD normally and launch another instance as administrator. Now, map a network drive in Explorer and type the command above in both of the running CMDs. You'll see that only one of them lists the mapped drive.

Regards
Dalai

[SteelersRock]

Confirmed your explanation, thanks. I don't use Windows 8 very much so didn't notice this 'feature' in that OS as well. I do run TC as administrator because even as a user in the local administrators group, I cannot add files in system directories and the program files directory (like putting the TC binaries under the Program Files directory). Windows 7 doesn't behave this way (member of the local administrators group can modify system directories and mapped drives are accessible by both TC and Windows Explorer).

[Dalai]

I do run TC as administrator because even as a user in the local administrators group, I cannot add files in system directories and the program files directory

Yes, I'm aware of that. However, it's only true on first sight. There are already a lot of threads in this forum about this topic. Still, it's a really bad idea to use TC as administrator permanently

You may ask why. Well, every program you launch from a TC (or any other program) that is running as administrator inherits the permissions from its parent. So every program you start from TC will be running as administrator as well. That's also true for launching programs by double-clicking its files, e.g. when double-clicking on a .doc file Word (or WordPad) will be running as administrator, too!

That's why I recommend to launch TC as administrator only if necessary! And, by the way, and that's why I said it's only true on first sight previously: TC has a helper tool that can copy files to protected (system) directories. In other words: TC doesn't need to run as administrator, because the helper tool does the work - and requests to run as administrator when required. So there's hardly a need to run TC as administrator, let alone permanently.

Windows 7 doesn't behave this way (member of the local administrators group can modify system directories and mapped drives are accessible by both TC and Windows Explorer).

Win7 behaves exactly the same way! If it doesn't, you have either disabled UAC or modified NTFS permissions on the system directories. The part about the network drives makes me think that you disabled UAC (so every program uses the same token), which degrades your Win7 to an XP default installation (everyone has administrator privileges).

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Just a side note, not meant to be offending in any way: No wonder that there're so many systems out there that get infected, because their owners don't understand the security concepts and, unknowingly, perforate them when they see fit ...

Regards
Dalai