Firefox File->Open does not show mapped network drives

Windows Vista Business and Firefox 2.0.0.9. I'm running Firefox as an
Administrator.

My hunch is that this is a problem unique to Firefox, but they of course
sent me this way. When I select File->Open from the main menu of Firefox, my
mapped network drives are not displayed when I select 'Computer'.

A related issue is that file links that open fine on local drives cannot be
found on network drives.

Anyone else seeing this or know what might be going on?

--Bruce

"bvandew" <> wrote...
> Windows Vista Business and Firefox 2.0.0.9. I'm running Firefox as an
> Administrator.
> My hunch is that this is a problem unique to Firefox, but they of course
> sent me this way. When I select File->Open from the main menu of Firefox,
> my mapped network drives are not displayed when I select 'Computer'.
> A related issue is that file links that open fine on local drives cannot
> be found on network drives.

Hi Bruce

FWIW, I'm running Firefox 2.0.0.9 and mapped drives appear okay in File,
Open. So, it isn't a universal problem ...

Perhaps what is happening is that you are running Firefox in a different
user context to the rest of your logon session (you mentioned you're running
it "as Administrator"). Drive Mappings are specific to each user context -
this is how Windows has worked since around Windows NT 4.0. So, if you map a
network drive as a regular user, and then run Firefox "as administrator",
you won't see the drives you mapped as a regular user, only the drives you
mapped as administrator. This is normal and "by design" (it might be a
lousy, counter-intuitive design, but ... there you have it).

The workaround in this case is to map the drives you need, "as
administrator", as well as a regular user.

There's a slight wrinle, in that you can only run Explorer in a single user
context, within each logon session, for some obscure technical reason. So,
you cannot start a second Explorer "as administrator", to map the drives. So
what I usually do is open a Command Prompt "as administrator" and then map
the drives manually, at the command line:

C:\>net use p: \\myserver\public

Then, P: will be available to any application I run "as Administrator".

To confirm this is a Windows issue and not a Firefox issue, run Notepad as
administrator, and see if you can see the mapped drives in Notepad's File,
Open. If my theory is correct, the mapped drives will not show up in Notepad
either; until you map them in an administrator session.

Hope it helps,

--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au