Remote desktop map local drive

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In order to map a folder [for example Documents] from a user's PC into Parallels RAS session, do the following:

1. Add the folder as a drive: right click on Computer in File Explorer > choose Map network drive... > specify the letter and path for the drive.

2. Open Parallels RDP Client > Connection Properties > Local Resources tab > click on Configure Drives... > check the check the required volume, that you specified previously ["Documents" in our example]

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 your local resources in the settings of your RDP connect window.  Notice below the More button at the bottom which takes you to the local devices and resources section which allows resources to be chosen.

On your target remote desktop connection, you will see these redirected drives underneath your Devices 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 traditional map network drivewouldn’t work as the ports required aren’t open.

The redirected drives however, can be mapped to which is awesome!  If you run a simple net usecommand inside of your RDP session, you will see the redirected drives appear.  Notice the format of the drive is in the form of a special 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 simple net use \\tsclient\ and voila, the drive is mapped!

Now if you look in Windows explorer, you will see a true network drive mapped under your Network Locations 

section.

Final Thoughts

If you are in need of being able to map a network drive from remote desktop back to local computer for development or possibly application specific reasons, this process is definitely a life saver.

• The best way is through Sharing, within Properties. Share with Everyone [Full Control], then control permissions through the Security tab [NTFS permissions]. 

• Like redirected drives?

  You can redirect his local drive to the server and it will show up as a disk in file explorer. No need to map anything. 

  Is the user connecting from a different network, like over the internet?

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• But what you really want to do is map a folder for best practices. You can provide credentials over the entire drive, but sharing folders is typically a better way of doing things. Here's how you would setup a mapped drive, following the sharing/permissions I already told you about... //www.it.cornell.edu/services/guides/computer/howto/map_win7.cfm

  Also, don't give a single user permissions. You give groups permissions. That's because if someone leaves the company, you don't have to remove their SID from folders ACLs. You can just delete them from the group in AD, and it cleans everything up on sharing/folder permissions.

  So even if this person is the only person needing access, create a security group in AD [if you're employing AD], then give that group the access needed on the share for that drive.

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• You might ask [after reading about sharing a folder, not a drive], is "well can I still serve up the whole drive, instead of a folder?" No, you cannot. Here's an article validating that. //superuser.com/questions/506360/mapping-an-entire-network-drive-not-a-folder

  The $ after the drive, means its a hidden administrative share. Which means you need admin privileges to access the drive remotely. I would advise against that. Create a folder, put whatever you need in there, assign a security group to the folder after it is shared to Everyone > Full Control. Put the user in that group, then map the folder to their computer [check the box to Reconnect at Logon].

• You don't need to map a drive, when the user connects to RDP before they do so is an show options box, then under local resources, you can choose C or whatever letter of his machine you want to be visible in the RDP sessions.

  I would only do this if the user is on the LAN/VPN and not over the internet.

  But why not simplify things and give the user a home drive that appears both local and in RDP so they can see it both ways
  

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• what is the user trying to do? under the options of the RDP connection, you can map the local drives of the pc to the server session and copy files , from/to that way

• Sorry I should have been more clear. Yes, what I want to do is map a folder on the remote server not an entire drive. I can accomplish that if I setup a VPN connection, in which case I can then see the folders I want to map, but I don't want to do that because it is super slow and not reliable with QuickBooks.  I want to be able to map a folder on the remote server as if it were a drive on my client [local] machine.

  Sorry for the confusion.

• britv8 wrote:

  what is the user trying to do? under the options of the RDP connection, you can map the local drives of the pc to the server session and copy files , from/to that way

  I want to do the reverse. Map a remote folder on the server to my local machine.

• robertpeets wrote:

  I want to do the reverse. Map a remote folder on the server to my local machine.

  So connect the laptop to the VPN and add the shared drive on the server to the local computer either with the IP address or servername.

• Welcome to the community as well!!

• Actually I am trying to avoid using a VPN. QuickBooks doesn't play well with VPN's.  My goal is to get the remote user to update their QB POS to their QB Enterprise which is on the remote server. Thanks.

• If you don't want to use a VPN you could setup WebDAV on the server and share out the folder over an HTTPS tunnel.   Not sure how well it would work with QB files though--you might run into similar issues as accessing with a VPN.

• Justin1250 wrote:

  Like redirected drives?

  You can redirect his local drive to the server and it will show up as a disk in file explorer. No need to map anything. 

  Is the user connecting from a different network, like over the internet?

  Actually I am trying to do the reverse of that. Map the server folder to the local drive. They are using RDP over an internet connection as well.

• VPN/HTTPS is the "only option" you are wanting to transfer data from server to PC. This will "always" be slow.

• Did anybody solve this issue? I can only use file copy/paste from local drive to the rdp serverdrives, I would like to get som sort of UNC path, or map a letter: I am using Cisco VPN, and the normal filesharing port is blocked.