How to map network shares into drives to a Windows service permanently

Answer

In order for network shares to be mapped into drives and accessible within Windows services, you need to login as the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM account.

To do this, download the Sysinternals Suite from Microsoft and unzip it to a directory say C:\TEMP

The following steps assume that you've unzipped SysInternals to C:\TEMP and all the executables are in there.

1. Launch a command prompt as Administrator.
2. CD \TEMP
3. psexec -i -s cmd.exe
   This launches a new command prompt window and step 4 should be performed in that new window.
4. net use Z: \\servername_OR_IP\sharedfolder /u:username /persistent:yes
   Provide the credentials of a user having access to the shared folder.
5. Create a script that runs on computer startup that has only line 4 in it acccording to Microsoft's article: Assign Computer Startup scripts.

If you need to remove it

1. Launch a command prompt as Administrator.
2. CD \temp
3. psexec -i -s cmd.exe
   This launches a new window. Step 4 should be entered in that window.
4. net use Z: /delete

NOTE: If you are using Windows 8 or Windows 2012 and you receive an error executing the net use command please follow this articlefrom Microsoft support knowledge base to fix it.