Thread: HowTo: Accessing NAS locations through libraries

Hi All,

I have seen alot of people having issues with NAS devices and Win7 Libraries (including myself). I have already posted this in response to a query on the subject elsewhere in the forums, but thought I would stick it here as well - hope no-one minds. This relates to people who are seeing the error "This network location can't be included because it is not indexed" when attempting to include a NAS/network share to library locations.

I seem to have come across a partial solution to this while tinkering, I am at least able to link the 4 default libraries to NAS locations - these are "Documents", "Music", "Pictures" and "Videos".
Basically, when these default libraries are created, they appear to get their default Library Locations from your user folders, which skips whatever verification is done to check for indexing.
To do this follow these steps (I have tested this on Win7 Ultimate x64 and x86, so can't say if it works in non ultimate versions, but I can't see any reason why it wouldnt):

* Go to your user page (ie, if your username is "bob", just load up an explorer window and type in "bob".
* You should now see a list of default folders, including a few of interest to us right now ("Documents", "Music", "Pictures", "Videos").
* For each of these 4 folders in turn, right click and go to properties. Go to the "Location" tab and enter in your NAS/network share location (ie, "\\NAS\Stuff\Videos"). This will go through fine as it doesn't seem to care about wether or not the folder is indexed here.
*Now click on the "Libraries" link in the panel on the right of the explorer window. Select all of the libraries and just hit delete, leaving you with an empty Libraries directory.
* Right click on the "Libraries" link in the panel on the right of the explorer window and select "Restore default libraries".
* The 4 defaults as mentioned above will be created. If you check the settings for each of these libraries now, you will see it has automatically been created with the locations taken from your user folders, which in this case is your NAS/network share locations.

You can now add additional local locations on top of the NAS/network share location to leverage the usefulness of libraries.

Its not an ideal situation by any means as it gives you no flexibility to add your own folders, but hopefully it helps people who just want the basics - I have only just discovered this, but so far everything seems to be working correctly. Have tested links from windows explorer and from within the start menu, all going through fine.

Tris

Bootnote: I had my NAS locations added as "Network Drives" when I did this, but I don't think this will have an effect. Just mentioning it for completeness.

Is to use this utility:

Win7 Library Tool Zorn Software

It allows you to add network locations from non-indexed locations (e.g. samba / NAS / linux boxes).