How to Map Network Drive and Connect to FTP in Windows 10?

It is a common practice in companies to share the folder or drives with all the relevant people working on it. This helps people to access and share the resources on the shared drive. Windows 10 makes mapping network drives an easy task. Besides connecting to shared drives, you can also remotely connect to the server using FTP. In this article let us explain how can you do that in details.

Related: Speedup Windows 10 and fix slow PC.

Map Network Drive

Open ‘File Explorer’ by pressing ‘Win + E’ keys. Navigate to ‘This PC’ section. Here you will see three sections – Folders, Devices and drives and Network locations. The last section will show all mapped drives connected with your computer.

In order to map a new network drive, navigate to ‘Computer > Map network drive > map network drive’ in ‘File Explorer’.

You will see a popup window like below.

Click on ‘Browse’ button and search the drive in the ‘Network’.

Network Discovery Error

There could be many errors occur depending upon the network status, availability of the drive and correctness of the entered details. For example, if you have disabled network discovery then you will see an error like below:

So, enable network discovery and try locating the shared drive again. You can enable network discovery by going to ‘Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center’. Click on the link ‘Change advanced sharing settings’ available on the sidebar. Here you can check the ‘Turn on network discovery’ option.

Wrong Shared Folder

You will see error code 0x80070043 when the shared folder name is not correct.

Click on ‘diagnose’ button to get more information on the error. Windows will run network diagnostics and show you the necessary action to rectify the error.

Completing Mapping

Once the drive is located, choose the drive letter, which is not used on your partition. Click ‘Finish’ button to complete the mapping. After that, you will see the mapped drive in ‘File Explorer’.

Ensure to check ‘Reconnect at sign-in’ checkbox so that the drive will be mapped every time when login to your laptop.

Disconnecting from Mapped Drive

If you want to disconnect from the mapped drive, simply go to ‘Computer > Map network drive > Disconnect network drive’ in ‘File Explorer’.

Related: Fix slow internet connection and speedup your browsing.

Connect to FTP or Online Storage Space

Windows 10 also offers an option for connecting to an online storage space like FTP server or any other website. When on the map network drive dialog box, click on the link ‘Connect to a Web site that you can use to store your documents and pictures’. This will open ‘Add Network Location’ wizard like below. Click on ‘Next’ to continue.

Click on the ‘Choose a custom network location’ option and click ‘Next’. For most cases, this will be the only option available.

Enter the FTP address or other network address you want to access and click ‘Next’. You can click on the ‘View examples’ link to see the format of the address.

If your FTP server allows anonymous logon then check ‘Log on anonymously’ link. Otherwise disable this option and enter username in the text box. This means you will be prompted with password when trying to connect to the FTP server.

Enter the name of the FTP location and click on ‘Next’ to complete adding FTP location to your Windows 10 laptop.

Windows will try to login to the FTP server location. If your server needs password then configure again with correct username and password to access the location. You can view the connected FTP servers in ‘File Explorer’.