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You are absolutely not wrong on any point, but we have to remember that telling a user to click the "Shortcut to Shared Folder Blah" icon on their desktop instead of opening the "S:" drive like they've done every day for 20 years is a big shift. It's generally not the IT folks who care about whether it's a drive letter or a UNC path (unless some awful legacy app requires it) but making huge changes in the user experience generates complaints and makes our lives harder.
I see both sides here and completely understand what it's like to be told "Just make the drive letter work" by upper management.
Jason_Sandys
Microsoft
MicrosoftI don't agree that this is a big shift for users though. They use favorites all day long along with web indexes/pages of links (like your organization's intranet homepage) to get to various web sites all day long. Thus, adding a handful of links, or better yet, using DFS so there's just one link won't be a big shift at all. Is it a shift? Yes? Can it be managed? Yes, I've seen it work before and have even implemented it.
- I agree with you completely, the problem is that many of the users don't. So many task workers out there do the same thing every day and have done it for a long time. Interrupting that process often comes with additional costs in the form of additional training, elevated support call volume, and the need to address complaints. Again, I agree completely about the technology. A shortcut to a UNC path always makes more sense as an IT admin, but we've also got to manage the end-user experience and sometimes that means doing what they prefer in order to make them more productive (or just because we don't have another choice).