Resolving Mapped Network Drive Issues with Administrator Privileges

In my office, we change the location of our My Documents folder to a network path so that working files are included in backup jobs automatically.  This occasionally leads to issues installing software, installing application updates, and sometimes running applications when these actions are run using the Administrator account.  In many cases running as administrator is a requirement for these actions.

The problem is that when you run as an administrator, mapped drives for the user account are not carried over to the Administrator credential.  Here are some errors I've seen:

• When running Visual Studio as Administrator - Error: Template store path is invalid: Unexpected path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\Work item Templates
• When installing new software or Adobe updates - Error 1327 - Invalid Drive
• When installing NuGet Package Manager update - Cannot find specified path

Fortunately there is a simple solution available to allow user mapped drives to be accessed by the Administrator account (who isn't much of an admin if it can't access what it needs to!).  I have only tested this in Windows 7 64bit.

Open the registry editor and navigate to the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/System

Add a new DWORD to the System folder called EnableLinkedConnections with the value of 1.

Restart your computer and your mapped drives will be available to the Administrator account!

See the WinAbility site for a Windows 8 workaround.

Replace Wiki homepage with Webpart page

In SharePoint 2010, creating a site using the Team Site template results in a page that looks like this:



SharePoint Home Page

This page is a wiki page called Home in a wiki page library called Site Pages.  It allows you to blend different objects such as images, text, and web parts into a workspace that you have layout control over.  The SharePoint 2007 model used a web part page for Team Sites and to mix content you had to use specific web parts such as a Content Editor or Image web part.

For experienced admins, the wiki page offers more flexibility.  But if you are in the habit of handing control of new sites over to users who need a less confusing, more stringent model you may want the web part page back rather than the wiki page.  Fortunately there is an easy way to make this switch without manually adding or dropping wiki libraries and changing home pages in SharePoint Designer.

Site Feature for Wiki Page

In Site Settings, manage the Site Features.  At the bottom of the list is an option for Wiki Page Home Page, in other places referred to as a Welcome Page.  When active, the default home page is Home.aspx in the Site Pages wiki library.  When you deactivate the feature, the home page is set to default.aspx which is a web part page at the root of the site.  The Site Pages library is not deleted or hidden from the Quick Launch, so you'll need to handle that based on your preferences.

If you currently have a web part home page, perhaps from a site that was migrated from SharePoint 2007, you can switch to a wiki home page using the same feature, only this time you activate the feature.  Activation will create a Site Pages library and wiki home page.

Remember to consider your primary users when deciding which home page type to use.