Mount box.net account in Windows Explorer
Update: If you are unable to mount Box.net as a folder, please read the fix for mounting box.net as a drive in Windows for the solution.
Recently while I was doing some blog reading I came across an article on TwisterMc which talked about how to mount box.net account on a Mac PC.
While I was happy reading it still I couldn’t use the same on my Windows XP box, so I did a bit of research and voila I found a way I could mount my box.net account in Windows Explorer.
Box.net is a online storage place which allows you to store files upto 1 GB online for free, It also has paid options for more storage space online. Using Box.net you can access your files from any computer that has an internet connection, uploading files is easy too.
Netvibes the popular start page also has box.net as an integral module.
Here is the simple way in which you can mount box.net as an additional network folder or drive in Windows XP ( I have not tested in any other environment but it should work )
To do this, right click on My Network Places in your explorer menu and click on Map Network Drive.
You will get a screen which is something like the screen shot below. In that click on Sign up for online storage or connect to a network server.
Clicking on the link should bring up another screen as shown below, In this click on next which will take you to a screen which verifies your internet connection, once that is done you will get an option to Choose another network location as shown below, highlight that option and click on next.
In the next screen you will be asked to specify the Internet or Network location, in that box add https://www.box.net/dav and click on next, you will be prompted to enter your box.net user name and password, enter the information and click on the Ok button.
If the login is successful you will see another window which asks you to specify a name for the network drive I have entered it as Techie Buzz Box.net, you can name it accordingly.
If all goes well you will see the confirmation screen as shown below Clicking on finish will mount this drive to your network places and you can simply copy paste files to those drives from your Windows Explorer to your Box.net mounted drive.
You can easily access the mounted drive by going to My Network places the next time. You can copy and paste your files to the mounted drive or copy from your mounted drive to your local machine, dosen’t this make it easy to share your files online with different users.
Note: It will ask you for your authentication details while you try to use it.
If you still need some more storage space, you may also want to read how to use Gmail as a storage device.
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Thanks!
how does it perform for a flaky connection??
It’ great. It works on my PC, Windows 2000 Professional Japanese version.
Thanks for very good information.
Maida01
Couldn’t get this to work - is the URL correct?
Thanks,
Martin
couldn’t log in even though I can log in through the web. any idea?
thanks
Hi Martin yes the url is correct and it works fine, I tried it again.
Hi Jon, could you try with another id as the process still works fine for me.
hi techie,
a stupid mistake I made: I used http instead of https, the url still works but login won’t.
so using https works
thanks!
techie,
I can added it as a new network places but can’t map it to a drive(eg: z drive).
were you able to map it to a drive?
thanks
Hi Jon,
I haven’t been able to map it to a network drive, but I am trying to see if it can be done.
I will definitely update the post If I am successfully able to do it.
You can also find a box.net module for the Google homepage. Thanks…
If box.net uses WEBDAV you could map to a drive letter using Novell NetDrive. It’s a free component (As far as I know) and a quick google search will turn up numerous download sites. It also maps FTP sites to drive letters.
I can mount, and even delete files, but I cannot copy files. When I do, I get some rather unfamiliar errors, like:
>An error occurred while copying the file. The requested header was not found.
OR
>Cannot create another system semaphore.
I was unaware of a limit on system semapores, or even what the hell a system semaphore is.
Using Goddam Windows 2000
Sorry to be unable to help you, I tried the same on my windows xp box and can copy over my files to the box.net account.
As I had said, I have only tested it on a Windows XP box, as I have still not been near a system using windows 2000 for quite sometime.
But still will try and get one installed on a test machine to test it out and get back to you.
Regards
Keith
Hi this is really a nice thing to know, I can now be able to sync my files at home and office with out much efforts of having to email them to myself all the time.
I tried some solutions, but no success. Than I used WebDrive (as a WebDAV client) and it works fine. \”Even\” file copy is ok.
If you have webdrive then you can use it also from the Windows command line like:
net use N: \\\\webdrive\\box
Where \”box\” is the site name in webdrive, where you set up your box.net account and N: is the new drive letter.
This program also works fine with FTP accounts and a few other protocols.
Seems to be working great for me
Thanks a lot for the information.
This looks very useful, thanks.
Grace, what do you use for syncing? - I also want to be able to sync home and office files.
I cant get it to work at all, When it gets to the part for logging in, I enter my info and then press submit and it tells me that the location is invalid or does not exist
If I try to enter it as https://, I get the \”The folder you entered does not appear to be valid. Please choose another.\” error.
If I try just http://www.box.net/dav then I am asked for username and password over and over again.
It never connects. Did box.net make recent changes to WebDAV setup?
Same for me as for Chris !! somebody has a solution!!
I\’m experiencing the same thing as chris as well.
Same for me. Do the people at box.net know about this?
Nor me. Soon to be sorry I canceled iDrive.
EG
Well, I was hoping this would be my webdav solution. It looks like they\’ve pulled the plug on it.
update: try using novell netdrive. it *kinda* worked for me. i can access files. but trying to open files directly ended up in my computer freezing…
OMG!!! Still not working!!!
I do try to map a network drive - https://www.box.net/dav
It tells me always:
the folder you entered does not appear to be valid
Could please somebody help me????
I just did it. I had to download a free WebDAV client first (NetDrive) from http://ews2.uni-dortmund.de:8080/public/lecture/ews2serviceteam/public/Download/netdrive.exe and then use http instead of https in the url. Also I had to do it via the NetDrive interface - but the result is the same.
Hi
Was getting the same error as the others but just tried with Netdrive and works
Thanks
I can\’t make it work trough windows explorer and netdrive hangs the whole system in a catastrophic way. Why the hell it isn\’t working in explorer?
This didnt work….
It gives error message saying the folder you enter didnt appear to be valid…
Any suggestions?
ok, so i found a way
1) you are gonna need this software
http://enginsite.com/download/DataFreeway.exe
2) it’s free but you register it here
http://enginsite.com/register.htm
(see the bottom of the page)
you enter your email and name, they will send you the registration code (fro me it took a couple of hours)
you can use 1-step free ode-day email from this site http://www.pookmail.com/ in case you don’t want to receive stuff from them afterwards
3) When creating a new connection
of the 1-st page::
-enter the name(anything you like)
-choose “DAV - Distributed Authoring…”
then on the second page::
ip: http://www.box.net
username: youruser@name.com
pass: yourpass
root (the very last line): dav
That’s it. Click OK and connect.
ps but it won’t mount it as a drive, you will be able to work with it only thru the program!
Hey elfion,
Thanks for the update. Will try it out and let you know.
Keith
box.net is one of the best storage services I know.\
This is sure to make things easier.
There is a problem with x64 version of Windows. You can not add an HTTPS folder.
Still looking for solution…
Sorry Mike cannot help you as I am using a 32 bit version of windows.
Keith
Webdrive is an expensive commercial alternative to Netdrive, although Netdrive has some freezing problems apparently, and it’s free status is questionable.
Here’s a program that’s definitely free and seems to do the same thing;
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Servers/FTP-Servers/FTPDrive.shtml
too bad ftpdrive only mount ftp, not webdav.
webdav seem to be a fail, unsupported feature:
http://blog.box.net/?p=65
Nice article, but what you describe is not mounting a DRIVE. It’s mounting to a folder. I mention this because I just spent 10 minutes following your directions only to realize you’re describing a process I already know. You description had me hoping there was some little difference that would actually provide a drive, mapped to a WebDav folder.
The problem with this approach is obvious. If you cannot always connect to the internet, or if it is a laptop, or if you copy/save large files, soon you will discover your desktop is locked / freezed.
Drive mapping over the Internet is a very bad idea, unless you have rock solid connection. Microsoft Windows try to cache a lot of info, so whenever you open a folder with a lot of photos or video files, Explorer will slow down your PC to a crawl. Anyway, I would strongly recommend DriveHQ FileManager. Drive / folder mapping is trivial. It also comes with a lot of great features, such as sharing folders / files to a group of people with different levels of access permission; sync folders among multiple PCs and users. It never locks up PC and upload/download speed is generally much faster than web folder or ftp folder.
thanks so much for the informative article, i’m so happy that i can access box.net from my desktop.
If Windows XP is telling you the https:// address is not valid, it is probably because you need to download this update from Microsoft.
Windows Update
It pretty much worked for me straight away but you may need to reboot.
I Fixed it !!
Goto here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=17C36612-632E-4C04-9382-987622ED1D64&displaylang=en
It updates windows web folder software.
YOUR WELCOME!!