Mapped Network Drive : FQDN vs. NetBIOS (Who’s Better, Who’s Best)
on February 23rd, 2009 at 12:56 pmI came across another one of those shake your head in disbelief problems. There are actually some programs out there that won’t work with mapped drives that are mapped using the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name). I don’t know how it is that it matters but the program gets errors and won’t run unless the drive letter it runs from is using the NetBIOS name of the computer for it’s network drive mapping.
Example:
FQDN : \\computername.domain.local\sharename
NetBIOS : \\computername\sharename
To map a drive in windows it looks like this:
FQDN: NET USE M: \\computername.domain.local\sharename /USER:domain.local\UserName PassWord
NetBIOS: NET USE M: \\computername\sharename /USER:UserName PassWord
To learn more, at the command line type ‘NET USE /?’ and press the enter key.
You’ll have to enable Netbios in your TCP/IP network settings in order to use the Netbios name. You’ll find it on the WINS tab.
From the perspective of the purist that does everything by the book this would really upset the balance of nature on your definitive network masterpiece. I guess it just goes to show that compromises aren’t just from hackers and attackers but sometimes we compromise our standards to get the job done.
- Cory L. Curtis
2009-02-23
For info on setting up NetBIOS see this post : Netbios Network Settings – A short how to.
