The Sharepoint File System is a proprietary web folder (WebDAV) implementation that is served through IIS 6.0.

WebDAV RFC 2518 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2518.txt) defines WebDAV as a set of methods, headers, and content-types ancillary to HTTP/1.1 for the management of resource properties, creation and management of resource collections, namespace manipulation, and resource locking (collision avoidance). Read more on WebDAV at http://www.webdav.org.

The general way that you normally interface with a WebDav enabled server is via My Network Places 

• Open Windows Exploer

• Select "My Network Places" on the left pane under "Other Places"

• Click on "Add a Network Place"

• The "Add Network Place" wizard will then start, click on Next

• Select "Choose another network location" and click next

• Type in your path to your document library such as "http://www.mywebserver.com/Shared Documents" and click next

• Give it a name and click next

• Click finish

Your Network Place will then be displayed in an explorer window. This window however does use the full path that you specified as the location/address in Explorer ( \\www.mywebsite.com\Shared Documents ). Wouldn't it be nicer to map it to a drive letter such as X: so that any application can save directly into the Sharepoint document library?

Well you can if you follow these steps instead.

From Windows Explorer

• Open Windows Explorer

• Select Tools / Map Network Drive

• Select your drive letter

• Under Folder : enter your url to your document library such as "http://www.mywebserver.com/Shared Documents"

• If you want to connect as a specific user click "Connect using a different name" and enter the other user credentials.

• Click on Finish

From a CMD.EXE Prompt