I have a deployed a gluster based HA filesystem which users access through SAMBA. Another developer has made a windows application (.exe) which plots data from the same network drive.
When anyone mounts the network drive in say Z:, and runs the exe which is in Z: itself, then the exe can’t see the Z drive.
When I run the exe from my local drive, it is able to see the Z drive.
I tried Claude and it says following:
This is a classic Windows network drive mapping scope issue.Here’s what’s happening and why:
Why This Happens
Windows network drive mappings (like Z:) are created per-user session in user space. When you run an executable directly from Z:, it often launches in a context where:
The process inherits a different security/session context that doesn’t have the mapped drive
The exe may trigger UAC elevation, and elevated processes run under a separate token that loses user-mapped drives
Some executables explicitly use a different working directory scope or spawn child processes that don’t inherit the mapping
When the exe lives on a local drive, it runs cleanly in your user session where Z: is visible.
