Page 961 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

For Further Study

Windows networking is a nearly limitless subject—and a rewarding career

specialty all its own. There are a few more topics that are beyond the scope
of this book, but you can find out more about them in free downloadable
appendixes to this chapter:

Mapping Shares to Drive Letters. Using this trick, you can
assign a letter to a particular shared disk or folder on the network.

Just as your hard drive is called C: and your floppy drive is A:, you
can give your Family Stuff folder the letter F: and the backup drive
in the kitchen the letter K:. And why bother? Because these disks

and folders now appear directly in the My PC window. Getting to
them this way can be faster than navigating to the Network
window.

The Universal Naming Convention. For hard-core nerds, double-
clicking icons in the Network folder is for sissies. It’s way cooler

to type a folder’s or document’s UNC code into the address bar of a
window: \\laptop\documents\salaries 2019.docx.

Corporate Networks. In huge companies, the ones that are

Microsoft’s bread and butter, the sprawling, building-wide (or even
worldwide) company networks are called domain networks. In a

domain, you have only a single name and password, which gets
you into every shared PC and printer on the network that you’re
authorized to use. Everyone’s account information resides on a
central computer called a domain controller—a computer so

important, it’s usually locked away in a closet or a data-center
room.

Deep-Seated Networking Options. Buried in the Windows
Settings and Control Panel apps, you’ll find the Change Adapter

Options screen, the ancient Network and Sharing Center, and
advanced Network Sharing options. All of these can be useful to