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I need to use a shared folder on a Windows 10 Host from a MS-DOS 6.22 computer. I can map the shared folder on MS-DOS but it behaves not as expected. If I create a folder on Win10 c:\sharedfolder, I can map that to lets say F: on MS-DOS and see the files as well as edit them. But if I map the entire C:\ as F: on MS-DOS, I can't dir the contents as well as I'm not bale to edit files that are there. A cd into that F: works but I can't go deeper into the folder structure.

I need to map the entire drive because on both sides runs proprietary software with hardcoded paths (a legacy nightmare which I unfortunately cannot circumvent to get up and running again).

My next thought was to create a folder, c:\share for example and create symlinks in the to the paths I need, for example mklink /D data C:\data. But that symlinks apear to behave in the same way as the maped drive C:.

Can anybody give me a hint what I need to do in order to get this working?

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    What file system are you using. MS-DOS cannot access NTFS. Additionally MS-DOS file systems have no "permissions" so file sharing doesn't really exist on MS-DOS
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 12:36
  • Use subst on the host to make a directory appear as a drive.
    – Daniel B
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 12:42
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    Try using net use f: \\machinename\sharename. According to the answer LAN connection - DOS to Windows 7 that user got it working between MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 7.
    – DavidPostill ♦
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 12:57

1 Answer 1

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I finally found out whats the problem! I'll going with the symlink method, I just have to set the permissions for the folders I link to to the same permissions as my shared folders.

If I do so everything works as expected!

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  • You should not be changing the permissions of protected folders on the C: drive. This is extremely bad practice and fundamentally undermines the security of your computer. If you wish to share files with a computer that cannot understand the modern Windows security model you should create a separate folder such as `c:\sharedfolder` and share that and only that. Any files you wish to be visible on the network can be placed in that folder. Sharing your entire C: drive on the network is also very bad practice and should not be done.
    – Cliff Armstrong
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 15:55
  • I totally agree with you but I'm kind of forced to do it this way. The program running on the DOS machine has a hard coded path, lets say F:\data\file.bin that it wants to access, F: in this case is the network share. on the other side, on the Windows machine runs another software that, again has hardcoded filepaths, that generate files into C:\data\file.bin. So I cannot alter either of these paths in any way, my only option (as far as I can tell) is to use symlinks on the windows machine to do the trick.
    – Bouni
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 9:01
  • I see. Archaic software is archaic. Symlinking on the host should work, the client should have no idea that it's dealing with a symlink. Like say... share C:\share, then symlink C:\share\data` to C:\data` should work. Then, as you said, make sure permissions on the symlink and the C:\data folder are permissive enough to allow access to a non-winnt_acl aware client. This should also preserve the security of the critical parts of the filesystem. Which sounds like what you are doing.
    – Cliff Armstrong
    Commented Aug 4, 2017 at 21:01
  • @Bouni Most likely that archaic software will run under WINE, and then it's easy to put `C:` anywhere on the system :)
    – Kuba hasn't forgotten Monica
    Commented May 21, 2018 at 23:54

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