MailStore Home - Tips and Tricks Part 2 - Multiple Home users

Problem: 

Аll of my family use email services and mail archiving by MailStore Home. My desire is they to have personal mailstore archive located in their private folders on our home NAS. If you try to install or run portable MailStore Home from network share you will get the error:

Resolution:


Have you ever tried to install a software on a network drive or use a network drive as application directory. In such cases the installer checks for the drive type and refuses the installation on network drives. A workaround which will help you to read the riddle is a symbolic link in Windows.

Symbolic links (symlinks) are actually advanced shortcuts. You can create symbolic links to individual files or folders and then these will appear like they are stored in the folder with the symbolic link even though the symbolic link only points to their real location.

There are two types of symbolic links - soft and hard. Soft symbolic links work essentially the same as a standard shortcuts. When you open a soft link, you will be redirected to the folder where the files are stored. However, a hard link makes it appear as though the file or folder actually exists at the location of the symbolic link, and your applications won’t know any different. Thus, hard links are of the most interest in this article.

For example, the application wants to put its data in the local disk drive but you want the data to be stored on the mapped network drive X:\NAS-Share\application, you can use the mklink command in Windows 7 command prompt to symlink the directory. The general syntax is:

mklink /d symlinkpath targetdirectory

Run Windows Command Prompt -> cmd.exe

C:\Users\user1> mklink /D e:\ms-user1 \\nas\personal_folders\ms-user1

You do not have sufficient privilege to perform this operation.

Oops! We need to use elevated command prompt - cmd.exe (Run as Administrator) ... do it again ...

C:\Windows\system32> mklink /d e:\ms-user1 \\nas\personal_folders\ms-user1

symbolic link created for e:\ms-user1 <<===>> \\nas\personal_folders\ms-user1

As you can see I don't need to create the ms-user1 folder manually, the mklink will do that for you.

Now the application detects E:\ms-user as valid local path and uses the symlinked path to store its data on the network share \\nas\personal_folders\ms-user1

For privacy reasons is better to create a symlink in corresponding user folder

Repeat symlink setup for additional home user folders:

Мy wife’s laptop:

C:\Windows\system32> mklink /d d:\mailstorehome \\nas\personal_folders\my_wife_folder/mailstorehome

symbolic link created for d:\mailstorehome <<===>> \\nas\personal_folders\my_wife_folder/mailstorehome

Мy son’s workstation:

C:\Windows\system32> mklink /d f:\mailstorehome \\nas\personal_folders\my_son_folder/mailstorehome

symbolic link created for f:\mailstorehome <<===>> \\nas\personal_folders\my_son_folder/mailstorehome

etc. 

For Windows 2000/XP, you would use a NTFS junction point or Windows Resource Kit, or Ln - Command Line Hardlinks tool

If you do not like command line and prefer graphic interface then try Link Shell Extension (really very useful and convenient tool)

Once you have done symlinks the next is MailStore Home installation, configuration an so on.

Coming soon: MailStore Home - Tips and Tricks Part 3 - ... in the Cloud


Please do not use MailStore Home for commercial purposes. This is illegal and violates the license agreement. If you need a solid email archiving solution suitable for all size businesses - MailStore Server offer much more valuable features, flexibility and ease of use for users and IT staff!