The project
The client is a real estate agency in Muggia with five Windows 10 workstations. One office PC hosts the shared folders and receives scans, while the other four connect to it. There is no domain and no dedicated server.
The goal was to make this setup work in an orderly way: every workstation should find the same documents and its own scans without doing anything, and whoever looks after the network should know what is in the office and be able to step in remotely. The work was scoped in a quote as four tasks and carried out on site in a single visit.
The solution
The first task was documenting the network equipment: devices, roles, shared folders and drive letters, collected in a report handed to the client. A five-seat office runs on details nobody remembers until something stops working.
The second is automatic folder mapping. On each of the four clients a PowerShell script runs at Windows sign-in and connects the Z: drive (office documents) and the Y: drive (scans). At sign-in the network is often not ready yet, so the script waits up to about a minute for the PC hosting the folders to become reachable. The connection uses the host name rather than its IP address, so an address change handed out by DHCP does not break access. The script does not run on the PC that hosts the folders, where they are already local, and it logs the outcome of every connection for troubleshooting. Access goes through a dedicated user limited to the two shared folders.
The third concerns the network scanner: each user has a personal destination, plus a shared one, and scans land in separate subfolders inside the Y: drive, ready to use from their own desk.
The last is remote support: AnyDesk is installed on all five PCs, so I can step in without travelling.
Results achieved
- Shared folders Z: and Y: available on their own on every client at each Windows sign-in, verified on site
- Connection by host name rather than IP address: a DHCP address change does not interrupt access
- Wait of up to about 60 seconds for the network at sign-in, with an outcome log for troubleshooting
- Dedicated user that sees only the two shared folders
- Scans delivered to one folder per user, plus a shared one, reachable from the Y: drive
- AnyDesk remote support ready on all five PCs
- Network equipment documented in a report handed to the client
