Under Windows, why are UNC paths better than drive letters?
It is highly recommended you use UNC paths for all renders when windows platforms are involved. UNC paths are better than drive letters for many reasons: • UNC paths always work. UNC’s work universally once the server is sharing them. For drive maps to work, they have to be configured at each client. • Drive letters don’t always work. Drive mappings can timeout or enter a ‘Not Connected’ state where the mapping has to be removed and then recreated to correctly fix them. UNCs always reconnect whenever accessed. • Drive letters can disappear when someone logs out. UNC paths always work, being resolved ‘on the fly’, and are not affected by interactive user login/logouts. • UNC paths will work even on a freshly booted machine. Drive letters won’t work unless someone is logged in, and has already configured them. • Drive letters are not portable to other platforms. Unix cannot be made to understand or redirect drive letter style pathnames, eg. z:/foo/bar. Only UNC paths are similar enough t
