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Installing on Vista: Error 1327 invalid drive when using mapped drives

Written by Sam McGeown on 26/11/2007 · Read in about 2 min (376 words)
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Tags: #Windows #Windows Vista

Incredibly irritating error when you go to install under your user account when you’re using mapped drives for your documents. All our domain users have a userfolder on the server, it’s mapped as z:\ and there is a folder redirection set up. It’s pretty standard in a corporate/domain environment, so why does it cause so many Vista installations to fail?

 

This is something I’ve run into time and time again and There are a couple of things you can try…sometimes they work individually, sometimes not!

  1. Reset your “My Pictures” location to the default (yes, that is stupid; no, I don’t know why Unrelated Program X wants to install something into “My Pictures”).
  2. Edit your registry (BACK IT UP FIRST) to remove references to your mapped drive.
    1. Run Regedit.
    2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
    3. Change any references that use the drive letter to use the %USERPROFILE% variable.
    4. Restart. 
    3. <li>
  <font size="2">If you&rsquo;re using UAC (User Account Control) you might need to map the network drive as the administrator. This is a pain in the @$$ because you have to disconnect the drive under your user account first. Of course, if you&rsquo;ve got ANY documents open, this will upset your profile. Anyway, steps for that: </font> <ol>
    <li>
      <font size="2">Disconnect the currently mapped drive. </font>
    </li>
    <li>
      <font size="2">Open the command prompt as the administrator. Type "net use \\[server]\share and check that it&rsquo;s mapped by typing &ldquo;net use&rdquo;.<br /> </font>
    </li>
    <p>
      <font size="2"></p> 
      
      <li>
        <font size="2">Open explorer and navigate to your shared folder and right click, use the &ldquo;Map Network Drive&rdquo; wizard to map the share under your user profile. </font>
      </li>
      <li>
        <font size="2">If all above fails (as in my case), your only option is to log in as a user that doesn&rsquo;t map drives (machine local admin works for me, but then you have to enable that user as it&rsquo;s disabled by default. You also have to provide a password for it - don&rsquo;t forget to disable again after an install.)</font>
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        </font> </ol> </li> 
        
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          <font size="2"></p> 
          
          <p>
            <font size="2">I could rant about how rubbish this is, but to be honest I am to hacked off at wasting my afternoon trying to work around this.</font>
          </p>
          
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            </font> </ol> </div>
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