Frequently Asked Questions about Autoshares Network Connection Manager
The most frequently asked questions are listed below.
- How do I get free updates to Autoshares Network Connection Manager?
- How can I add a network folder to connect to?
- Which Network Disk Drive do you recommend?
- Who was this software written for?
How do I get free updates to Autoshares Network Connection Manager?
Free updates are available to registered users from our registered users page at
www.wieser-software.com/autoshares/regusers.shtml
How can I add a network folder to connect to?
Just navigate to the "C:\Program Files\Wieser Software Ltd\Autoshares" folder, or right click the icon on the desktop and choose "Open File Location".
Then double click autoshares.exe to allow you to configure the program
- To add a shared location, just double click in a blank area.
- To delete an item, so it is no longer connected at startup, just click on it and press the Del key on your keyboard
- To modify an item, double click it and edit it as required.
Are there any command line options to the program?
Yes, you can change what the program does by adding additional parameters to the command line. These are as follows:
- -connect Connect to all of the shares listed.
- -register Set the program to start automatically when the current user logs in.
Which Network Disk Drive do you recommend?
We use the Western Digital NetCenter 320 GB Ethernet Network Hard Drive, which is available from Misco in the UK.
The drive is very quiet, and consumes very little power. It also automatically powers down when not used. It's also a bargain at around £125!
Unfortunately, at this price there are bound to be some limitations. Here they are:
- The drive does not allow you to mark files as read only.
- The drive works at share level passwords only. It does not allow you to maintain different permissions for different users.
However, these prove to be little disadvantage, once you automatically enter the shared passwords.
There are a lot of options available for network attached storage, though. Here are more storage devices with storages up to 1000 GB! And if you need a gigantic storage device again, here are some suggestions.
Who was this software written for?
The Cambridgeshire Deaf Association was expanding their staff, and wanted a cost effective way to share a limited number of PC's among all of them. Their IT budget was limited, so we proposed a network attached storage device to store all of the documents.
Many of the documents are shared among the staff, but they also wanted to have a publicly accessible PC on the same network. As a result, the shared documents had to be password protected.
Without a domain controller on the network, managing passwords can be difficult, so we wrote Autoshares Network Connection Manager for them.
The program starts up when each user logs on, and the passwords for the connected drives are stored encrypted in the system registry. Now their staff don't need to remember any passwords; the shared drives connect automatically.