Powershell: how to map a network drive with a different username/password

Question

Background: Assume I use the following powershell script from my local machine to automatically map some network drives.

$net = $(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network);
$net.MapNetworkDrive("p:", "\\papabox\files");

$net = $(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network);
$net.MapNetworkDrive("q:", "\\quebecbox\files");

## problem -- this one does not work because my username/password
## is different on romeobox
$net = $(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network);
$net.MapNetworkDrive("r:", "\\romeobox\files");

Question: How do I modify the script so that I can also connect to romeobox, even though my username/password on romeobox is different from that of the other two boxes?

score 41 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 07 '11 at 01:03

41

$net = new-object -ComObject WScript.Network
$net.MapNetworkDrive("r:", "\\romeobox\files", $false, "domain\user", "password")

Should do the trick,

Kindness,

Dan

edited Feb 07 '11 at 01:03

Emperor XLII

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answered Oct 07 '09 at 10:30

Daniel Elliott

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3

Out of curiosity, what is the purpose of $false, presumably a return value? Looked it up but can't find the documentation for MapNetworkDrive... – Nagev Jan 04 '18 at 11:00
From the documentation `persistent: True/False - store the mapping persistently in the users profile. default = false` – omni Oct 14 '20 at 09:38

score 14 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 22 '12 at 12:54

Came here looking for how to map drives using PowerShell?

There's a simpler way with PowerShell3.0. New-PSDrive has been updated with the -persist option. E.g.

New-PSDrive -Name U -PSProvider FileSystem -Root \\yourserver\your\folder -Credential yourdomain\username -Persist

In the past, New-PSDrive affected only the current PowerShell session. -persist causes the mapping to be registered with the O/S, as it were. See New-PSDrive

To answer the original question, you can vary the credentials used. Using -Credential to vary the domain\username causes Windows to prompt for a password. Another alternative is to pass a PSCredential object as in the example below. See Get-Credential for more detail.

PS C:\> $User = "mydomain\username"
PS C:\> $PWord = ConvertTo-SecureString -String "mypassword" -AsPlainText -Force
PS C:\> $Credential = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $User, $PWord
PS C:\> New-PSDrive -Name U -PSProvider FileSystem -Root \\domain\some\folder -Credential $Credential -Persist

I think there may be an easier way to obtain the credentials now: `$Credential = Get-Credential -Credential "domain\user"`. This will prompt for a password with the username field already populated. — SeanKilleen, Jan 04 '14 at 08:01

score 14 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 07 '09 at 15:28

If you need a way to store the password without putting it in plain text in your script or a data file, you can use the DPAPI to protect the password so you can store it safely in a file and retrieve it later as plain text e.g.:

# Stick password into DPAPI storage once - accessible only by current user
Add-Type -assembly System.Security
$passwordBytes = [System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetBytes("Open Sesame")
$entropy = [byte[]](1,2,3,4,5)
$encrytpedData = [System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData]::Protect( `
                       $passwordBytes, $entropy, 'CurrentUser')
$encrytpedData | Set-Content -enc byte .\password.bin

# Retrieve and decrypted password
$encrytpedData = Get-Content -enc byte .\password.bin
$unencrytpedData = [System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData]::Unprotect( `
                       $encrytpedData, $entropy, 'CurrentUser')
$password = [System.Text.Encoding]::Unicode.GetString($unencrytpedData)
$password

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered May 17 '16 at 12:29

I found this easy one liner worked in my case (little "out of the box" thinking ;) )

(Start-Process -FilePath "C:\windows\system32\NET.exe" -ArgumentList "USE I: \Server\Volume /USER:XXXXX password /persistent:yes" -Wait -Passthru).ExitCode

And as an added bonus, you get an nice exitcode to report off of. Hope that helps.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered May 14 '16 at 20:54

$User = "user"
$PWord = ConvertTo-SecureString -String "password" -AsPlainText -Force
$Credential = New-Object -TypeName System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList $User, $PWord
$net = $(New-Object -ComObject WScript.Network)
$net.MapNetworkDrive("r:", "\\server\share")

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered May 20 '20 at 17:58

If you are set on using powershell native (if there is such a thing), then you can use:

 New-SMBMapping -LocalPath "V:" -RemotePath $NetworkPath -UserName $UserAndDomain -Password $pass

See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/smbshare/new-smbmapping?view=win10-ps

There are some additional nuggets like Remove-SMBMapping, etc.

Powershell: how to map a network drive with a different username/password

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