If you’re like most people, you probably have a network drive in your computer’s root directory. This is the location where your Windows clients store their files and folders. Group Policy is a powerful tool that can help you manage these drives and their contents. To map a network drive on a Windows client, open the Group Policy Editor and create a new GPO. Name the GPO Network Drives and Files, and add the following content: Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Defender Security Center\Security Options In this example, we’re mapping an existing network drive named C: on our computer to be part of our Windows Defender security center. We’ll also add another network drive to our security center called D:. This will make it easier for us to find and access our files from both networks. Now that we’ve created our GPO, we need to set it up! To do this, we’ll use the Set-GPO cmdlet. In this cmdlet, we’ll first set up the GPO for our new network drives. We’ll then add users to the GPO and configure them to use it. First, let’s set up the GPO for C: on our computer: Set-GPO -Name Network Drives and Files -Value “C:\Users<username>.local” -Scope Local -Confirm :$false Next, let’s set up the GPO for D: on our computer: Set-GPO -Name Network Drives and Files -Value “D:\Users<username>.local” -Scope Local -Confirm :$false

Mapping network drives is one of the most common jobs for a network administrator. In the past we used to use a script, but there is a group policy setting that can save us the scripting effort.

Note: this is part of our ongoing series teaching IT administration basics, and might not apply to everybody.

Mapping Network Drives Using Group Policy

Open the Group Policy Management Console by searching for it from the Start Menu.

You’ll want to drill down into your domain until you reach the Machines object, where you can right-click and choose to Create a GPO.

Note: Although the OU in our example is called the Machines OU it also contains some users. The Group Policy Setting that allows you to map drives is a User setting and is therefore assigned at logon, this means that the OU that you tie the GPO to should contain Users rather than only computers.

We have to give our new policy a name, we will name ours Mapped Drives (General).

Now we can right click on the policy and choose edit.

The policy that controls mapped drives is located at

We need to select the policy and right click in the white space and select new mapped drive.

Change the action to create, and type a location for your shared folder.

Now set the label, this is the name that will appear on the drive in my computer. You will also need to choose a drive letter, it is a best practice to choose a static letter across the board, the last thing you need to do is change the radio button at the bottom to Show this drive.

Now when the users logon the drives will be effortlessly mapped.