Hello everyone,

First time poster looking for help. You guys all seem friendly (having trawled through previous posts looking for a solution prior to posting) so i THOUGHT i'd join you and request your assistance.

I'm looking for a way of giving access to a particular part of a network and then automatically opening a program.

Basically, i am based in England (the company HQ) and we use a piece of scanning software which has it's own server on our network. We also have a satelitte office in Holland. They can connect to certain parts of our network but have to enter their username and password to authenticate themselves to gain access.

What i want to do is create a program (.BAT ) that when run (clicked) directs them to the area of the network where the program is STORED (THUS forcing the authentication prompt) and then after they've ENTERED their un & pw closes the folder and launches the scanning software.

Is this possible?

We use Windows XP sp2 on our PC's and Windows 2003 on the servers. The Dutch guys connect via a VPN.

Any other INFO required please ask.

Thanks in advance.This area of the network you're directing them to -- is this a unc path?Yes that's correct. It's:

\\INVU\INVU200 (or \\servername\foldername)

Ordinarily when attempting to access this area of the network they get a prompt to enter their username and password, which is what i want, but as i said i then want it to launch the scanning software after they've entered the required info.

Any help much appreciated. I wouldn't know how to make a program run after authenticating a unc path, but you could just write a little "runas" script which should acomplish pretty much the same thing. They wouldn't have to browse the UNC though.