UNC Paths in Sharepoint 2007 links

Applies to
  • Microsoft Office Sharepoint 2007
What?
I've been tasked with adding links to files located on some network shares. I want to use UNC paths such as \\myServer\myShare\myFile.doc. I could map the UNC path to a drive letter and then link to it (eg. I:\myFile.doc)but what if other users haven't mapped the same drive letter to the path? Then they won't be able to use the link.

Why?
As soon as someone suggested I setup WebDAV to do this, I thought I'd write this article to warn others that that's unnecessary and can simply open another can of worms (security-wise). There may be situations when this is better but I'm just trying to add a link to our Sharepoint 2007 portal.

How?
Add a link with the prefix File:// and complete the rest of the path as per usual. Sharepoint will correct the link when you OK it if you are trying to enter a real UNC path:
copyraw
File://\\myServer\myShare\myFolder\myFile.doc

-- yields
file:////myServer/myShare/myFolder/myFile.doc
  1.  File://\\myServer\myShare\myFolder\myFile.doc 
  2.   
  3.  -- yields 
  4.  file:////myServer/myShare/myFolder/myFile.doc 
Category: SharePoint :: Article: 443

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