List Both Local And Network Drives With Full Details

Steven Moore

I've been scouring the internet trying to find the answer to this and can't seem to find anything.

I'm making myself a new Folder Browser UserControl using a TreeView as an excercise to try and learn more about C#, and to add into a File Renaming program I've been developing.

I've found that the TreeView is a little small for my touchscreen laptop, so I've taken it on myself to recreate it with bigger icons and + symbols.

Now, first thing's first, I'm obtaining a list of drives (both local and network) to add into my TreeView, but I can't seem to get all the information I require.

In My Computer (I'm using Windows XP but I'm going to test on other versions where it says This Computer as well) there are 11 objects showing

*EDITED DUE TO WORK*

Using System.IO I can obtain some of what is showing but not all of it.

The options I have available are:
AvailableFreeSpace
DriveFormat
DriveType
IsReady
Name
RootDirectory
TotalFreeSpace
TotalSize
VolumeLabel

Using P:\ as an example I get the following:

AvailableFreeSpace = 30102499328
DriveFormat = NTFS
DriveType = Network
IsReady = True
Name = P:\
RootDirectory = P:\
TotalFreeSpace = 30102499328
TotalSize = 4397611224320
VolumeLabel = FileSystem6 (3Par)

So, none of the options gives me the *EDITED DUE TO WORK* detail that shows in My Computer.

Can anyone tell me how I can get this information?

Any help would be much appreciated.

6 Replies

Know the answer? Post it — somebody with the same question will find it here.

Vulpes12y ago
I'm wondering whether "File Cluster Itanium Server - Wintel Team" is what's called a 'friendly name' for your mapped network drive?

If it is, then it appears that it can only be obtained from the registry as it is not exposed through WMI.

I found this SO thread which contains some code for accessing the appropriate registry key:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22015958/how-can-i-read-the-friendly-name-for-a-mapped-network-share

To access the Registry class you'll need the following using directive:

using Microsoft.Win32;
Steven Moore12y ago
That's what I've done.

I get the following details for drive J: shown above.

*EDITED DUE TO WORK*
Vulpes12y ago
I'd try printing out the values of the Caption, Description and Purpose properties to see if there's anything helpful in those.
Steven Moore12y ago
I think I spoke too soon!

I've just realised the names that are shown in My Computer aren't part of the data.

The drive called *EDITED DUE TO WORK* only has Mont949n01arc as part of the ProviderName.

Can you suggest how I get this detail?
Steven Moore12y ago
Thanks for the reply. This works very well.

I posted on a couple of other boards at the same time and they both came back with very similar answers.

The only difference was that they suggested using a ManagementClass and ManagementObjectCollection instead of a ManagementObjectSeracher.

I tested both ways and found the ManagementClass and ManagementObjectCollection took one second less to run, so it appears that it may be quicker, so I've used that way instead.

Thanks for your help!
Vulpes12y ago
You should be able to get much more information on drives using WMI's Win32_LogicalDisk class rather than .NET's System.IO.DriveInfo class:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394173(v=vs.85).aspx

I'd try running the following console app to see what info it gives you about the naming of network drives. Unless you're running it from the command line, you'll probably need to add a reference to System.Management.dll first:

using System;
using System.Management;

class Program
{
static void Main()
{
var searcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher("select * from Win32_LogicalDisk where DriveType = 4"); // network drives only

foreach (ManagementObject mo in searcher.Get())
{
string deviceId = mo["DeviceID"] as String;
string name = mo["Name"] as String;
string providerName = mo["ProviderName"] as string;
Console.WriteLine(deviceId);
Console.WriteLine(name);
Console.WriteLine(providerName);
Console.WriteLine();
}

Console.ReadKey();
}
}