Question

I can open files from a mounted network drive, but not from an unmounted one e.g \\mycomp\folder2\hi.bmp

Any work around for this?

Answer 1

The following snippet works for me:

char buffer[1000];    
FILE* file;
size_t bytesRead;

file = fopen("\\\\server\\share\\test.dat", "rb");  
if (file != NULL)
{
    bytesRead = fread(buffer, sizeof(char), sizeof(buffer), file);
    fclose(file);
}

Also note this excerpt from the fopen docs (MSDN):

…

fopen will accept paths that are
valid on the file system at the point
of execution; UNC paths and paths
involving mapped network drives are
accepted by fopen as long as the
system executing the code has access
to the share or mapped network drive
at the time of execution. Special care
must be taken when constructing paths
for fopen to avoid making assumptions
about available drives, paths or
network shares in the execution
environment.
…

You also need to consider, that the account you are running your program under, needs to have the appropriate access rigths to the file. When you mount the share as a network drive, maybe you are using different credentials to connect. That could cause fopen to fail.