In Windows 7, if you try to add a network share to your “music” or “videos” or “pictures” libraries, you’ll probably get an error, either because the network folder is not indexed or indexable, or the remote files are not available offline.

Well, it might not be indexed or the files might not be available offline, precisely to avoid burdens, such as duplicating them locally.

There is a workaround to fool Windows Explorer in allowing any kind of remote share. Just follow and adapt these steps, here examplified for a “music” library hosted on a remote network share named \\server\music

(1) run the local command prompt as an administrator

(2) make a local folder to represent the folder you’ll add to the music library, e.g.

md c:\network.shares\music

(3) using the local Windows Explorer, goto desktop/libraries/music and add the empty location just created

c:\network.shares\music

(4) back to the local command prompt, remove the just created folder, typing

rd c:\network.shares\music

(5) instead of a regular folder, you’ll now make a symbolic link to the network share:

mklink /d c:\network.shares\music \\server\music

It is done. No need to do anything else using Windows Explorer, because the music library is already mapped to
c:\network.shares\music
although that location changed from a regular local folder to a symbolic link to a remote resource.