How to Clear Map Drives From the Registry in XP

In the Windows XP operating system, you can connect to remote servers or data storage devices by mapping network drives. Each drive you map requires a unique drive letter. These drive letters are displayed in the "My Computer" window, where you can navigate to your connected drives. If you no longer want to associate a letter with a network drive, you can clear the mapping references through the Windows registry.

• 1

  Log in to your PC computer with an administrator account.

• 2

  Open the Start menu and click on the "Run" icon.

• 3

  Type "regedit" into the text field and hit the "Enter" key to launch the Registry Editor tool.

• 4

  Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices section of the Windows registry.

• 5

  Locate the mapped network drive that you want to clear. Each drive will have a registry entry labeled as "\DosDevices\" followed by the letter assigned to it.

• 6

  Right-click on the drive entry and select the "Delete" option from the contextual menu, then confirm your decision to remove the mapped drive letter assignment.

• 7

  Restart your computer. The mapped network drive that you removed will now be cleared from the "My Computer" window.