I am using Win XP home and I have hosting service on a Unix or Linux, not sure...but it runs cPanel
I am wondering if there is a way to setup on my computer a network drive that routes to an ftp account...I've tried and it's not working
At the Map Network Drive screen, ftp://70.000.000.000 could not be found
any thoughts?

On XP you cannot "Map" a network drive with ftp. However you can add an ftp site to your "My Network Places" and then you will see the ftp site as a folder.

Goto "My Network Places" and click on "Add network Place." There are options for using ftp and you will have to type in your credentials.

thank you!

i'm wondering, though, if there's an OS where that is possible?...i'm probably in the wrong section at this point, but i was thinking about using Remote Desktop to accomplish this...something like a Virtual Private Network... but i don't have XP pro or any other system that could act like a server...
my goal is to allow staff working off site to easily access files through windows programs like ms word or ms excel to save, edit, etc -- files would be located on the web server or on a network computer on site (not necessarily a network server)
any thoughts?

The only OS that I know of where you can do that sort of thing is my personal favorite, Ubuntu!

You can use fuse-ftp and that will mount the ftp system and they will just show up as real files! Any program can use them as if they were local. (Fuse is amazing, but kinda technical)

Its not easy, I admit, but it is possible. Otherwise you have to copy the file to your hard drive, edit it, then copy it back.

do you have a website or place to download fuse-ftp? is it a program, a method?

quick search online shows that it just might not be a program..

In KDE it does not make much difference how you access file system, as far as there is kioslave for it - so any kioslave aware app can open and use ftp / scp / fish / smb / ... file systems as if they were local files.

In KDE it does not make much difference how you access file system, as far as there is kioslave for it - so any kioslave aware app can open and use ftp / scp / fish / smb / ... file systems as if they were local files.



kioslaves are awesome, I must say. The only catch is that it has to be a kde app to use them as files.

Here is a link to download fuseftp: http://wiki.thiesen.org/page/Fuseftp

It is not for the faint. But fuse can do amazing things. Here are some more fuse filesystems: http://fuse.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/FileSystems

Someday it will be easy :(