Hi,
I have been trying to find if it's possible to access network paths on Win7PE without the need of mapping a drive to the network share first.
I'm posting my findings so others can contribute and eventually we could find the solution for the problem I have found.
On my test if I try to directly access a network path from the Run box the result is this:

What I found is that if the file
networkexplorer.dll doesn't exist on the system32 folder, instead of the error above it works as in normal windows and we get a prompt for the user and password to access the protected network share but after authenticated successfully we get the error Windows cannot access \\192...

Now the curious part (for me) is, if instead of using the Run box I open the Computer icon and use the address bar to access the network path like show in the next image it works properly showing the credentials prompt and browsing the shared folder without any problem!
Edit: After a successful login the run box can then be used to access the network share including other shares on the same host.
If I try to access a different share on another machine from the run box it will fail again with the same error and the workaround with the Computer window must be used again for the new network path.
Information about the options used on the project:
- 1 - Copy Files: Standard
- 5 - µExplorer Shell with networkexplorer.dll and NetworkExplorer.dll.mui added to system32 and System32\en-US\ respectively
The result of my tests don't change if I use the
1 - Explorer Shell script instead of µExplorer Shell.
Anyone have ideas to fix this and makes the run box work as it should?