Connecting to a network folder with username/password in Powershell

Question

I often access shared network folders in Powershell to grab files etc. But if the share requires a username/password, Powershell does not prompt me for these, unlike Windows Explorer. If I connect to the folder first in Windows Explorer, Powershell will then allow me to connect.

How can I authenticate myself in Powershell?

Answer 1

This is not a PowerShell-specific answer, but you could authenticate against the share using "NET USE" first:

net use \\server\share /user:<domain\username> <password>

And then do whatever you need to do in PowerShell...

Answer 2

At first glance one really wants to use New-PSDrive supplying it credentials.

> New-PSDrive -name myShare -Psprovider FileSystem -root \\server\share -credential domain\user

Fails!

New-PSDrive : Cannot retrieve the dynamic parameters for the cmdlet. Dynamic parameters for NewDrive cannot be retrieved for the 'FileSystem' provider. The provider does not support the use of credentials. Please perform the operation again without specifying credentials.

The documentation states that you can provide a PSCredential object but if you look closer the cmdlet does not support this yet. Maybe in the next version I guess.

Therefore you can either use net use or the WScript.Network object, calling the MapNetworkDrive function:

$net = new-object -ComObject WScript.Network
$net.MapNetworkDrive("u:", "\\server\share", $false, "domain\user", "password")