Today I ran into a situation on a Windows 7 install that I previously fought several months ago, but this time I vowed to document it so I can find the fix more quickly in the future.
Problem: You have a Windows 7 PC connected to a domain. The login scripts will map network drives for you. Once logged in the user can see their mapped drive, H:\ for example. But when you run a cmd prompt as an Administrator you cannot see drive H:\ or any drive that is mapped.
The reverse might also be true. If the drive is mapped while under the context of Administrator, then the local user cannot see it.
Solution: Microsoft says this is by design, and maybe so, but it is still a pain-point. The current user and the "run as local administrator" are considered two different contexts and each have a separate security token. A workaround is to modify a registry key to allow both contexts to share the tokens.
- Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
- And if it does not exist create a new Key (DWord value) called EnableLinkedConnections with a value of 1
- Then reboot
Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937624
