Windows 7 Can't add network drive to library

[andomar]

Hey, in the Win7 beta I could add a network drive (on a samba file server) to the Music library. But the Win7 RC gives an error message when I try that:

This network location can't be included because it's not indexed

It also won't add or index mapped network drives; including my home directory at work. So libraries & indexing is now pretty much useless.

Am I doing something wrong, or is the RC really a step back from the beta?

 

[cmn]

Hey, in the Win7 beta I could add a network drive (on a samba file server) to the Music library. But the Win7 RC gives an error message when I try that:

This network location can't be included because it's not indexed

It also won't add or index mapped network drives; including my home directory at work. So libraries & indexing is now pretty much useless.

Am I doing something wrong, or is the RC really a step back from the beta?

... is the RC really a step back from the beta?

If you have installed Win 7 -7100 with the following MD5 you should not find any difference for the worse from any of the earlier better Beta Builds which worked OK.
MD5 Windows 7 RC Build 7100 x86 : 8867C13330F56A93944BCD46DCD73590
MD5 Windows 7 RC Build 7100 x64 : 98341af35655137966e382c4feaa282d

 

[andomar]

The checksum matches.

I rebooted back to my beta version of Win7 (it's on a separate partition) and my Music library contained the folder "\\unixmachine\sambashare\music". Worked like I remembered.

However, when I tried to add the same folder to another library, the Beta gave the same error as the RC. I guess it's something that was patched after the original Beta came out? A shame really, because the Beta library was very useful, and the RC library is useless.

So far the RC is a cold shower

 

[pbcopter]

I have been able to create network locations in the library by right clicking in an empty area of the library folder and selecting new and then "shortcut' and pointing to the network location. This is in the RC build 7100.

 

[andomar]

I have been able to create network locations in the library by right clicking in an empty area of the library folder and selecting new and then "shortcut' and pointing to the network location. This is in the RC build 7100.

Tried that, but it just creates a shortcut to the new folder in the library, it doesnt add the music itself to the library?

 

[okaryn]

You can use symbolic link to add a network folder. For exemple, I'm replace the original Music folder by a link with :

rd /S /Q "%userprofile%\Music"
mklink /d "%userprofile%\Music" \\192.168.0.3\Commun\Musique

You can create a new symbolic link anywhere (not in temp) and add this new link into a library.

 

[andomar]

mklink /d "%userprofile%\Music" \\192.168.0.3\Commun\Musique[/code]

Thanks, that worked, the library contains my music again!

So you can add Linux network locations as long as they're symolically linked and called c:\users\me\music. Smells like an artificial restriction.

 

[FalconFour]

This is driving me nuts as well. I got one network location added to my fresh installation of Windows 7 RC1, but subsequent attempts to do the same with identical locations (set up for offline access as per Help file as I'd also done with WinXP) gave me that hair-tearing error.

It's very much an artificial restriction! There's no reason to require "indexing" to be enabled on the files (which they are; not only do I have them available offline, but I also installed Windows Search on the server, running XP). I even have Windows Search removed as a component on my 7 system; I don't need "search"!

Honestly I don't need libraries at all, but I do want to have everything work as it should, and that means having no files at all actually stored on this computer (laptop, which is also my main PC). Offline Files makes for an extraordinarily reliable backup mechanism, if only it could be implemented properly

edit: I believe it _MAY_ be related to a hotfix. I set up the first network location right out of the box, but the later ones I tried setting up after Windows Update automatically started installing patches. I'll have to look through the patches...
edit: Funny, doesn't show any updates for Windows itself at all. Only a bunch of updates for Office 2007. So, perhaps a hotfix can be ruled out...

 

[FalconFour]

Well... I found that the reason it wasn't working is, in fact, because I removed Windows Search. Sad that it's such a prominent and important feature, but curious that MS still allows it to be removed.

I think that error message needs a little wording revision none the less. Or a functionality change, in that if it's checking to see if the folder is indexed for searching, and searching itself is disabled, then it really doesn't need to check that anyway. Ah well... maybe it'll be fixed before RTM, but I'm not putting any money on it. It works great now that I've re-enabled Windows Search, although my HDD is cranking away, grinding at trying to index all my data that I'll never end up searching through, *sigh*

edit: On a side note, I'd actually completely rebuilt my network around Windows Home Server after making the above post, both to check out its new functionality (and gain access to the benefits of Remote Differential Compression), and to try resolving the issue. To my shock, I set up offline files for the Music folder (on the server share), and it still refused to add. It wasn't until I reinstalled Windows Search that it just "started working"...

 

[HPulstar]

I have the same problem as andomar, but I don't want to move the personnal directory.
So, based upon okaryn response, I've made a symbolic link to a directory (on a NAS) but adding this link to the library was not working.
So, I create a directory, add this directory to the library, then remove the dir and create the symbolic link with the directory name.
And miracle, it works fine now.

If this could help...

 

[faxedhead]

Win7 Library Tool

If you want to add network locations to libraries, you can use this free utility:

Link Removed