File Shares Support for Faculty & Staff
Accessing File Shares from Windows
Accessing files on the network can be done with Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer can be found in the Programs sub-menu of the Start menu.Upon opening Explorer, the following three drives will be visible:
- username$ on (H:)
This is a direct path to the user's individual folder, to which only he/she has access. This is also known as the H:\ drive. - Common$ on (K:)
This is a path to the Common area where a user can deposit a file in his/her department's folder, the "Temp-Shared" folder, or the "DropOff" folders. This is also known as the K:\ drive. - WCSU General on (T:)
This area contains a folder of clipart organized by category. This is also known as the T:\ drive.
It is important to understand the subtleties and consequences of moving files and copying them. When a 1-MB file is moved from one location to another -- e.g. from a biology professor's H:\ drive to the Arts & Sciences temporary folder (K:\Temp - Arts & Sciences) -- the biology professor is charged with 1 MB from his/her quota. If the same professor instead decides to copy the 1-MB file from his/her H:\ drive to the Arts & Sciences temporary folder, 2 MB will be charged from the professor's quota -- one for the copy on the H:\ drive, one for the copy in the Arts & Sciences temporary folder.
Drag and Drop
- In the right side of the Explorer window, open up to the source directory where the file is located.In the left side of the Explorer window, open up to the target directory by clicking on the + signs next to the directories only. Clicking on the actual folder will display its contents in the right side of the Explorer window.Drag the file from the right half of the Explorer window to the target folder on the left.
- If you are dragging from one directory to another directory on the same drive, the file will be moved to the target directory. If you are dragging a file to a directory on another drive (e.g. a file from a user's H: drive to the "Shared" folder on the K: drive), the file will be copied to the target directory while the original will remain intact. The copy in the "Shared" folder will be charged to the user's quota.
- Cutting/Copying whole files in the Explorer window works very similar to cutting and copying text in a word processor.Click once on the file and select Copy from the Edit pull-down menu in Explorer.Select the destination folder and select Paste from the Edit pull-down menu. This will place a copy of the file in the destination folder.
- The procedure is the same with Cut command; however, the cut command will delete the original file once Paste is selected.
Using the DropOff Folders
As eluded to earlier, the DropOff folder is located in the Common area (K:\ drive). There is a folder for each department in the DropOff folder that every faculty and staff member has the ability to write in, but only the members of the named department have the ability to read or remove the contents. This will enable a professor in the music department to give a file to the Registrar's office only. The file will be charged to the music professor's quota.
- Files older than 30 days will be purged from the DropOff area
Manually Connecting to your file shares
It may become necessary to manually map a drive to the file share server. The following steps outline how to connect to your file shares:
- With the Explorer window open, select "Map Network Drive" from the "Tools" pull-down menu.In the Map Network Drive window, select "K: " as the drive.In the path field, type "\\w-staff\Common$" and click on the "OK" button.
- Establishing a manual connection to the H: drive involves the same procedure with these exceptions: select "H: " as the drive and enter "\\w-staff\your last name and first initial$" in the path field; for the T:\ drive, enter "T" as the drive letter and "\\w-staff\WCSUGeneral" in the path field.
Other Available Information:
- Introduction to the File Share services at Western.
- Using file shares from a Macintosh computer.