With network shares you can make a folder available across the network. Therefore any device on the network will be able to access that folder with the proper permissions. Network shares are done by assigning or “mapping” a drive letter to the share.
If you name a share that ends with a dollar sign ($), that share will become hidden. But this is not a security measure. Shares ending with a $ won’t be listed to other people on the network, but if someone already knows the share name, they’ll still be able to connect to the share.
To view the shares configured on your system go to the Administrative Tools applet of your Control Panel. Then select Computer Management. Select Shared Folders then Shares. This will list out the share names, their folder path, and how many people are connected to it.
Mapping Drives
You can use Windows Explorer to access a remote share on your computer. In Windows Explorer, go to This PC and then select Map network drive. This brings up a configuration screen that allows you to specify a drive letter and input the share path. The path generally begins with two \’s and then the name of the server or device and then another \ and the name of the share. For example: \\server\share
You can configure your settings to automatically reconnect to the share everytime you restart your computer. You can also specify if you want to connect using different credentials.
Instead of using this GUI interface you can also map a share with the net use command via command line. For example to map a drive to letter x to the abc share on server1, the command line would look like this: net use x: \\server1\abc
