Mapping a network drive without hardcoding a drive letter in a batch file

Question

I need to map a network drive with a batch file, but don\'t want to specify the drive letter.

The batch file is used as part of a deployment process; I call the batc

Answer 1

A possible solution is to apply the pushd command to a UNC path that exists for sure, so a temporary drive letter is created that points to that path. The current directory, namely the root of the temporary drive, can be determined to get the drive letter. Finally, the popd command must be used to delete the temporary drive letter:

pushd "\\%COMPUTERNAME%\ADMIN$"
rem /* Do stuff here with the root of the temporarily created drive
rem    used as the current working directory... */
rem // Store the current drive in variable `DRIVE` for later use:
for /F "delims=:" %%D in ("%CD%") do set "DRIVE=%%D:"
popd
echo The next free drive letter is `%DRIVE%`.

The variable COMPUTERNAME and the share \\%COMPUTERNAME%\ADMIN$ should exist on all modern (NT-based) Windows systems.

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If you do not want the current environment to become even temporarily "polluted" by the attempt of pushd to derive a free drive letter, you may want to use the following approach:

for /F "delims=:" %%D in ('
    pushd "\\%COMPUTERNAME%\ADMIN$" ^& ^
        for %%Z in ^(.^) do popd
') do set "DRIVE=%%D:"
echo The next free drive letter is `%DRIVE%`.