Accessing the J Drive through the Web
The purpose of this document is to provide information on accessing the SBA J drive using the
Internet. The technique used to accomplish this uses a technology known as WebDAV (Web
Distributed Authoring and Versioning). WebDAV is an industry standard technique that is
implemented in many operating systems (For more information see www.webdav.org ). It was
designed to make it possible to share and exchange documents over the Web. Microsoft has
implemented WebDAV in both Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Therefore in order to use the
techniques described in this paper you must be running Windows 2000 or Windows XP. We
do not support access to the J drive from other Windows versions (W98, W95, ME, Vista, etc.). If
you would like to access the J Drive with Windows Vista, please do so at your own risk. If you
are unsuccessful, you may want to install the following patch and try again:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=17C36612-632E4C04-9382-987622ED1D64&displaylang=en
The setup for WebDAV is slightly different depending on whether you are running W2K or WXP.
Both use the concept of a “Network Place” as web location where you can (assuming you have
proper security) load and store documents. Once you have configured a “Network Place”, the use
is the same regardless of which version of Windows you are using.
Windows 2000 Setup
To define a Network Place on W2K, double click on the “My Network Places” icon on the desktop.
You should then see a screen similar to the following:
Accessing the JDrive
2/15/2016
Page 1
Click on “Add Network Place” and you should see a screen similar to the following:
Enter the Web location which is http://jdrive.sba.uwm.edu/jdrive Click Next and you will see the
following:
At this point you need to enter your SBA userid and password. The user id should be prefixed
with sba\. For example if your userid is efudd, then enter sba\efudd as in the example. If your
instructor has given you a team id, then you should use that id. You may check or uncheck the
“Save this password in your password list” box as desired.
Accessing the JDrive
2/15/2016
Page 2
Click on OK and you will see the following:
You can call the Network place anything you want. In this case I have called it Jdrive but the
name is your choice. Finally, click on Finish and you will get one more sign on box similar to the
following:
Again, enter your SBA id, password and in the Domain box enter SBA. It is your option as to
whether you check “Save this password in your password list”
Windows XP Setup
In WXP there are a number of ways to create a Network place. If you click on “Start” and
it displays “My Network Places”, you can click on “My Network Places” to launch the
Wizard. If you don’t see “My Network Places” in your Start Menu, you can access it by
right clicking on “My computer”, then click Explore. You should now see “My Network
Places” at the bottom of the folder/tree display.
Accessing the JDrive
2/15/2016
Page 3
Right Click on “My Network Places” and click on “Open” and you should see a screen
similar to the following:
Click on “Add a network place” to launch the wizard.
Accessing the JDrive
2/15/2016
Page 4
Click on “Next”
Select “Choose another Network Location” and click on “Next” and you will see the
following screen:
Accessing the JDrive
2/15/2016
Page 5
Enter the web site name http://jdrive.sba.uwm.edu/jdrive and click on “Next” and you
will see a password screen similar to the following
At this point you need to enter your SBA userid and password. The user id should be
prefixed with “sba\”. For example if your userid is efudd, then enter “sba\efudd” (without
the quotes) as in the example. If your instructor has given you a team id, then you should
use that id. You may check or uncheck the “Remember my password” box as desired.
Click on OK and you will see the following
Note: You may be asked to enter your password twice.
Accessing the JDrive
2/15/2016
Page 6
You can call the Network place anything you want. In this case I have called it jdrive but the name
is your choice. Finally Click on finish and you will get one screen similar to the following:
Click on Finish and you are done.
Accessing the JDrive
2/15/2016
Page 7
Using a Network Place
A Network place can be used through a Windows Explorer interface just as you would a
local drive or folder. Simply open Network Places, click on the name of the Network
place that you created in the steps above (If you have logged off, you may need to reenter your userid and password) and you will see an display similar to the following
You can copy, create, delete, rename files/folders just as you would in Windows
Explorer.
Many applications can save files directly to a network place. For example, from an
Microsoft Office application, you can if you click on Save, you can select “Network
Places” and then select the name that you assigned to your Network Place and store the
file directly. Other applications such as Notepad cannot save directly to a Network Place.
However, you may notice that saving directly from applications requires you to re-enter
you userid and password multiple times. To avoid this simply use the explorer interface
to copy, move, rename and delete files. It may take a little experimentation to find the
best method of operation.
Finally be aware that while Network Places makes it look like you have a local folder,
you are still subject to the limitations of your network link’s speed. In other words, if you
try and copy/save a large file using a dial up connection, it will still take a long time.
Accessing the JDrive
2/15/2016
Page 8
General Notes

If you are in a class where you have an individual homework folder and you are in
another class where you have a team homework folder you will only be able to access
one folder at a time. If you want to switch to the other id, you will need to logoff and relogon. When you access Network Places, it will re-authenticate and you can now enter
your other id and password.

This procedure may not work through all firewalls. The fact that it uses standard HTTP
decreases the chances of problems due to firewalls. If you are having problems,
however, you should try to temporarily disable your firewall to see if that corrects the
problem.

Network places are stored in a User’s profile. There is no equivalent of the “All Users”
concept for Network Places. Therefore if you have multiple users on your computer, you
will need to define Network Places for each user individually.
Accessing the JDrive
2/15/2016
Page 9