Therefore, if we combine both concepts, we create what we are looking for precisely along these same lines, that is, that Windows works perfectly with any unit via grid. So, next, we are going to show you several methods so that you can use the one that interests you the most in each case. With all this, what we are going to achieve is that our PC based on windows and connected to a network is much more functional and productive.
How to connect to a network drive
Mapping a network drive in Windows 10 or Windows 11 will allow us to quickly access data stored on a different computer. Using a mapped drive is a quick and easy way to access a hard drive remotely. The remote hard drive can function as a local drive by assigning it a local drive letter. As such, it’s ideal for storing data that won’t fit on your computer, viewing files from a tablet, backing up content, and sharing file access with others.
There are several ways to connect from Windows 10 or Windows 11 to a network drive. As usual in many of the functions that the Redmond system presents us natively. As you can imagine, this allows us to connect all types of devices to our PC’s network in the most comfortable and simple way among those shown.
Furthermore, as we can see below, this is not a very complex process, even for users who are not very experienced in this type of change.
Through your IP / name
if we know your IP adress (for example, 192.168.1.1), we can access this storage unit directly by typing said IP in the address bar of the Windows file explorer. To do this, we have to introduce two initial backslashes at the beginning of this IP address to indicate to the browser that it is a network drive.
You may ask us to log in with a username and password to access the data. The username and password are the same that we can use to enter the configuration of the router itself.
In addition to using the IP, we can also do it through the device’s network name. For example, if our router is called “ROUTER-01” We can access it by writing that name in the address bar, with its two counterslashes.
From the file explorer
The problem with the previous method is that we have to re-enter the data each time we access the files. And if we go in very often it can be annoying. In that case, what we have to do is mount the network drive on our computer. This will allow us to always have it at hand (from the file explorer) and some applications that are incompatible with network directories will be able to use them.
We can do this in two ways. The first one is through the button that appears in the upper hidden bar of the file explorer. And the second, from the explorer, by right-clicking on “This computer” and choosing the corresponding option.
We will see a simple wizard that will guide us through the connection process.
We will be able to choose the letter that we want to give to the unit, and specify the route, in the network, of said unit. If we use the buttonExplore» We can let Windows 11 or 10 search for it automatically and select it to connect more easily to it.
We can also tell Windows if we want it to connect to that unit automatically when logging in, and if we want to use a different username and password from the operating system.
Now we are connected. The unit will appear in the Windows File Explorer, under “This PC” in the “Network Locations” category. And we can enter it and work with it as if it were another hard drive connected to the PC. We will identify it by the icon it has, different from that of the hard drives and other units connected to the PC.
From CMD or PowerShell
Windows 11, like Windows 10, also allows us to connect to network drives through its two consoles: CMD and PowerShell. To do this, all we are going to have to do is enter the following commands, in the corresponding console, replacing the data indicated by the corresponding data:
In the case of CMD:
net use drive_letter:ComputerShare /user UserName Password /persistent:yes
- drive_letter:ComputerShare –> Letter that we want to give to the drive and the network directory where it is located.
- UserName –> User.
- Password –> Password.
If we prefer PowerShell:
New-PSDrive -Name drive_letter -PSProvider FileSystem -Root “ComputerNameShareName” -Credential “UserName” -Persist
- ComputerNameShareName –> Network Directory.
- UserName –> User
The parameters “persistent:yes” and “Persist” allow us to make the volume we mount persistent. In this way, the drive will always be mounted by default, so we will not be forced to use these commands every time we start Windows and want to access network drives.
With product proprietary software
Surely many of you know first-hand that working with devices connected to the network gives us many advantages. In this way we will have remote access to all kinds of elements and data through our operating system installed on the different computers. Precisely for this reason we are showing you the easiest ways to disconnect these new elements to use them within the local network. As we have seen, the Microsoft operating system offers us different functions that help us when configuring this type of process.
But at the same time we must bear in mind that many of the manufacturers of those elements that we are going to connect to local network, provide us with their own software. It is worth mentioning that all this makes things much easier for us when it comes to increasing the equipment in this network. Generally, these proprietary programs come prepared to avoid all kinds of problems and conflicts when installing them. At the same time, it provides us with a series of functions that will allow us to get the most out of performance to the device as such, for example, a network hard drive.
Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, especially if we are not very experienced users, we recommend that you use these programs that are included with the hardware itself that we are going to connect, especially if it is about storage systems such as a NAS, networked hard drives or any other device that allows you to share the content it stores.
disconnect network drive
The problem with network drives is that, once connected, they cannot be changed. Therefore, it may happen that, due to an IP change, or simply because we have gotten tired of it or it is no longer available, we need to disconnect the network drive from our PC. That is why at the same time that we previously showed several ways to connect these drives to the network in Windows, now we will see how to undo the changes. This is a decision that we can make in the event that we see that the unit that we installed at the time does not work as it should (probably because the IP that is assigned on the network has been modified) or simply because we no longer need it.
from explorer
We can do this in two different ways. The first, from the explorer taskbar. If we display the button that we have used to connect we can see the option to disconnect a unit. And if we choose it, we can see a list with all the network drives that we have connected to the PC.
And we will also be able to click on the unit, with the right button, and choose the option to disconnect.
In the end, the result is the same. That is, the unit will be disconnected from our PC and will disappear from the file explorer. Also, it will automatically stop connecting at login. If we want to have it available on our computer again, we must follow the steps that we have explained in the previous section.
From CMD or PowerShell
Of course, we can also disconnect any drive using commands in Windows. To do this, the first thing we will execute will be the following command to see all the network drives that are connected to our PC:
net use
To delete the unit that we want from our Windows, we simply have to execute the following command in a CMD window.
net use Z: /Delete
In our case, the drive we want to disconnect is Z:, but we will have to change it to fit our drive. Once the command is executed, the unit will have been completely disconnected from our computer.
Why can’t I create the network drive
There are certain occasions when we try the method that we tried from those mentioned so far, we do not have the possibility to connect a network drive to our Windows computer. The problem may be caused by an external agent and not our fault. One of the most common reasons why this can happen is due to a recent update to the Microsoft operating system. And it is that on many occasions, after installing a Windows update, the network drives Current ones stop working and we can’t create new ones.
This may be due to some kind of incompatibility with the network drivers that we have installed on the computer at that moment. Therefore, we should remove that new update until this is fixed. We must also bear in mind that these incompatibilities are also quite common with new applications that we install on our PC.
View existing connections
For many reasons, the situation can arise that we need to see the active connections at that moment in our network. Microsoft’s own operating system offers us some interesting solutions for all of this. This will help us to detect various problems that we have in these connections or see the reasons why they work too slow.
In addition, it will never hurt to have certain information related to these connections that directly affect our work with the PC. To do this, for example, we can use the command called NETSTAT, which is basically in charge of monitoring our network connections. We can run this directly from a command prompt or CMD window without installing anything additionally on the computer. It is worth mentioning that today it is a tool integrated into Windows that is very easy to use.
In the command prompt window we only have to type said command followed by one of the parameters that we will show you below. To say that the argument support for this command is quite high, but these are some of the most useful and common ones:
- -a – Show all connections and ports.
- -b: shows the executable of the creation of each connection or port.
- -e: Shows the statistics of the Ethernet connection.
- -f: we will see the fully qualified domain names for external addresses.
- -n: shows us the addresses and port numbers.
- -o – Displays the ID of the owning process associated with each active connection.
- -q : allows to see…
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