question about mapped drives

what happens when you accidentally "clear out all windows mapped
drives"?

"citizen" <FlammesSombres@gmail.com> writes:

>what happens when you accidentally "clear out all windows mapped
>drives"?

No idea what you are talking about. Perhaps a more detailed question would
help.

Using the Microsoft Anti-Spyware beta version, I was clearing out
temporary files to free up disk space. However, I ended up clicking on
a button that Microsoft termed "clears out all windows mapped drives."
It also went on to describe the function as "not recommended."
Therefore, I think this might have dangerous effects on my computer.

It doesn't seem to have any effect at all since I have already shut
down, turned on, and used my computer without any problems.

In article <MPG.1d8d726d93a5960a989fed@news-server.columbus.rr.com>,
Leythos <void@nowhere.lan> wrote:

> In article <1126410224.891368.169740@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups .com>,
> FlammesSombres@gmail.com says...
> > Using the Microsoft Anti-Spyware beta version, I was clearing out
> > temporary files to free up disk space. However, I ended up clicking on
> > a button that Microsoft termed "clears out all windows mapped drives."
> > It also went on to describe the function as "not recommended."
> > Therefore, I think this might have dangerous effects on my computer.
> >
> > It doesn't seem to have any effect at all since I have already shut
> > down, turned on, and used my computer without any problems.
>
> Mapped Drives = network connections you've made to other users computers
> hard drives.

In other words, normally the anti-spyware program only looks on the hard
disks physically connected to your computer. If you click on that
button, it will also scan all the network disks that you've attached to,
on servers or other computers that have turned on file sharing. You'll
see these mapped drives, if you have them, if you go into My Network
Places.

The main reason it's not recommended is not because it can harm your
computer, but because it will be incredibly slow. It's better to run
the anti-spyware software on the other computers, rather than doing it
over the network. Also, if you've mapped someone else's drives, they
might prefer using a different anti-spyware program.

--
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***

Thanks.

First I thought mapped drives were the letters that you assigned to
your hard drive partitions, but this didn't seem to be true.

But it wasn't slow at all...it was almost instantaneous.

Also, the connections in My Network Places didn't get removed, either.

citizen <FlammesSombres@gmail.com> wrote:
[clearing out]
> Using the Microsoft Anti-Spyware beta version

Funny, and typically Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/com...mt/sm0504.mspx

They don't manage to get the security problem back on track, so marketing
provides an "Anti-Spyware" program. One can't say, that Microsoft is doing
nothing, can one? ;-)

Really, Microsoft is working on the topic that Windows is disastrously
insecure. They're trying out nearly every idea.

But "Anti-Spyware" unfortunately is not one of the best ones.

Yours,
VB.
--
"Es kann nicht sein, dass die Frustrierten in Rom bestimmen, was in
deutschen Schlafzimmern passiert".
Harald Schmidt zum "Weltjugendtag"

"First I thought mapped drives were the letters that you assigned to
your hard drive partitions, "

You can assign letters to any drive or folder you can see on the
network, pretty much.
The other drive letters could be on your own drive(s) (to let you
access a deep folder more conveniently) or on some other machine that
you're connected to. So, it entirely depends on your configuration.
It would probably be a Good Idea to know what you have mapped and
where...