Simulating an UNC path with a leading dot

Posted by Uwe Keim on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Uwe Keim
Published on 2011-06-21T15:50:28Z Indexed on 2011/06/21 16:24 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 303

Filed under:

Windows

|

network-shares

|

parallels

|

hostname

|

unc

Being a C# .NET Windows Forms developer, some customers are running our applications on an Apple OS X Mac inside a Parallels virtual machine.

Parallels presents host folders to the guest Windows as UNC paths with a leading dot like

\\.psf\Home\Some\More\Folders

Now an application of us cannot handle the leading dot correctly when accessing files from these kind of shares ("Invalid URI, cannot analyze host name" exception).

I want to debug and fix this issue, unfortunately I do have no Mac and Parallels around here to test it.

My question is:

Is there a way to "simulate" this kind of share on a normal Windows server or client so that I'll be able to debug my application with Visual Studio?

What I tried so far:

I already tried to edit my HOSTS file to contain an entry like

# ...
127.0.0.1       .psf
# ...

but Windows just seems to not recognize the share at all.

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about Windows

Server 2012 DFS New Member Issue

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I am trying to add a new member to our DFS topology. We have 3 DCs (VMs - VMware) running Windows server 2012, two servers are located in or Primary site and the third at our DR site. Currently the two servers at our primary site are currently replicating DFS (full mesh) and are working fine. I have… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
error in IIS7 but not on IIS6

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I have a website that is we are now deploying to windows 2008 servers that has worked in the past on IIS6 without a problem. It is using .net 2 framework. Most of the website works. Just when we create a screen report over a certain size on the server we get this error. Event code: 3005 Event… >>> More
Microsoft Management Console stops working when I add snap-in to it

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have Windows 7 Ultimate OS. I'm opening mmc.exe as administrator and trying add Certificates or any other snap-in, then while loading that snap-in MMC breaks and displays following message and after that it closes automatically once I click on close button on that message. What could be the problem… >>> More
Handling keyboard and mouse input (Win API)

as seen on Game Development - Search for 'Game Development'
There is a number of ways to catch mouse or keyboard under Windows. So I tried some of them, but every of them has some advantages and drawbacks. I want to ask you: Which method do use? I've tried these: WM_KEYDOWN/WM_KEYUP - Main disadvantage is that, I can't distinguish between left and right-handed… >>> More

Related posts about network-shares

Network shares do not mount.

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
My network shares were mounting fine yesterday.. suddenly they are not. They were mounting fine for the last two weeks or however long since I added them. When I run sudo mount -a I get the following error: topsy@monolyth:~$ sudo mount -a mount error(12): Cannot allocate memory Refer to the mount… >>> More
Windows user account just for accessing network shares on a Windows 7 machine

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I would like my Xbox (Xbmc) to access my Windows 7 shares without having Guest accounts enabled and without using my Administrator account login details. I have tried making it an account called Xbox and this works fine but the Xbox account appears on the login page for Windows. Is there a way to… >>> More
Cannot access Network Shares on Windows Server 2008 running VisualSVN Server

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
Hi, I have installed VisualSVN server on Windows Server 2008. The server is part of a domain but not the domain controller, it is just a data server and now an SVN server. VisualSVN uses port 80 and can only be access from inside the network (i do i by going to the dns name of the server). However… >>> More
Cannot browse to network shares but can ping and RDP into machines on LAN

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I am using Windows XP SP3. I cannot browse to network shares via explorer, using machine name or IP. I can ping all machines by name and connect via RDP by name with no problem. I have changed nothing on the LAN or any network settings on any machine since it was working ok. Does anyone have any suggestions… >>> More
Leopard Network Shares and browsing are unreliable

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have two macs, running Leopard 10.5.8. One is the 13" MBP connected via WiFi, and the other is a 24" 2008 iMac, connected via ethernet. There are at least another 6-10 machines (windows and mac) awake on the network (with shares) at any given time, yet there are plenty of times where I cannot see… >>> More