Mapped Drives are Not Shown in SolidWorks (File->Open Window)

Symptom

This article provides a resolution to the issue where mapped drives show in Windows Explorer, but do not show in the SolidWorks File->Open menu.  For example, in Windows Explorer the mapped drive Engineering(Z:) is shown on this system:

However, navigating to File>Open in SolidWorks, we can see that the mapped drive is not shown:

Cause

This issue occurs if the User Account Controls (UAC) are enabled.  The UAC treats members of the Administrators group as standard users. Therefore, network shares that are mapped by logon scripts are shared with the standard user access token instead of with the full administrator access token.  If SolidWorks is then launched with the full administrator token, the drives will not show. A more detailed explanation is offered on the Microsoft Website:

Some Programs Cannot Access Network Locations When UAC Is Enabled

Solution

To work around this problem, add the EnableLinkedConnections registry value. This value enables Windows to share network connections between the filtered access token and the full administrator access token for a member of the Administrators group. After you configure this registry value, LSA checks whether there is another access token that is associated with the current user session if a network resource is mapped to an access token. If LSA determines that there is a linked access token, it adds the network share to the linked location.

This section contains steps that modify the registry. Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system or make your system unsafe. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any data on the computer. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, see How to back up and restore the registry in Windows in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

To configure the EnableLinkedConnections registry value: