Map a network drive from remote desktop back to local computer
If you are working a lot with remote desktop sessions especially in lab environments where network segmentation is present, there are often many situations where it is beneficial to have access to local or network drives from your host computer you are connecting from by means of a network drive on the remote desktop session. Let stake a look at how tomap a network drive from remote desktop back to local computer session.
As you know you can redirect and extend locally attached or mapped network drives from your host computer to the RDP computer you are remotely logging into. The way that is accomplished is thelocal resourcestab.
Map a network drive from remote desktop back to local computer
You are already most likely familiar with the process to redirect drives from your host computer over to your remote desktop session. This is as simple as choosing yourlocal resources in the settings of your RDP connect window. Notice below theMore button at the bottom which takes you to thelocal devices and resources section which allows resources to be chosen.
On your target remote desktop connection, you will see these redirected drives underneath yourDevices and drives area of Explorer. They will be designated by on where computername is your host.
Mapping these to real network drives
You may however have the need to map these redirected drives to real drive letters inside your remote desktop session. For instance developers may have the need to have access to source code in a lab environment which they may not have RPC or NETBIOS traffic allowed. The traditionalmap network drive wouldnt work as the ports required arent open.
The redirected drives however,can be mapped to which is awesome! If you run a simplenet use command inside of your RDP session, you will see the redirected drives appear. Notice the format of the drive is in the form of aspecial UNC path represented by\TSCLIENT so these are mappable.
Notice that all we have to do to map these in a true sense to a network drive letter is a simplenet use \tsclient and voila, the drive is mapped!
Now if you look in Windows explorer, you will see a true network drive mapped under yourNetwork Locationssection.
If you are in need of being able tomap a network drive from remote desktop back to local computer for development or possibly application specific reasons, this process is definitely a life saver.