I use a lot of virtual machines - and it’s always handy to store files onto the real machine through shared folders. With Windows 7 and the new library feature I thought it would be really cool to add the shares to the Documents Library but found that the underlying system must be running Indexing Server 4.0 – not an option for my OSX based system!

Here’s a nice little workaround that lets you add non-indexed folders though:

To add a non-indexed UNC as a library to Windows 7 Beta:

  1. Create a folder on your hard drive for shares. I used c:\users\Mark\Shares\Documents.
  2. Add the new folder to your library using Explorer.
  3. Delete the folder using a command prompt window.

  4. Use the mklink command to create a symbolic link with the Documents name to your share. In my case the proper command was:

    mklink /D Documents \.HostDocuments

Note that mklink.exe requires administrator access so start the command prompt by holding SHIFT+CTRL and clicking on it (or use the “Run As Administrator” option)

Voila! Explorer keeps the folder in the library even though it’s not indexed.