SUBST
Substitute a drive letter for a network or local path.
Syntax
SUBST drive_letter: path
SUBST
SUBST drive_letter: /D
Key
SUBST with no parameters will display current SUBST drives
/D : Delete the drive_letter substitution.
Compared to mapping a drive with NET USE the SUBST command allows
mapping to a subfolder of a drive share - for the storage of user profiles this
reduces the number of shares you need to create on the server.
Bugs
Under NT 4 SUBST'ed drives cannot be disconnected using the Explorer GUI
- this was fixed in Windows 2000.
In Windows 2000 (and above) you will have problems creating,
accessing and deleting
drive mappings with SUBST.
However under Win 2K/XP the functionality of the NET
USEcommand is improved so you can now do
NET USE g: \\server\share\folder1\folder2
If the network resource is unavailable (ie the server is down) SUBST will continually
retry - unlike NET USE which will try to connect once and fail - depending on
your application this may be a good or a bad thing - a subst drive that is not
available will badly impact performance of most applications.
Notice that when SUBST is used against a local shared folder, it will create
a RECYCLER for that drive. The RECYCLER is not removed when the drive substitution
is removed, but can be deleted manually.