bark01:
Good answer, I new that you had a specific reason, just wanted to understand
Try this, open notepad and type these two lines
subst x: /D
subst x: C:\downloads
save the file as something like map.bat the name is not important, but the .bat file extension is
x: is the drive letter you want to use
C:\downloads is the path to your share that you are mapping to
If the share is nested deep and includes spaces in the path you will need to use "Quote Marks Around the Path Statement"
If this works for you, then put the map.bat file in your startup folder
Hope this helps