< networking > (UNC) Used in IBM PC networking to completely specify a directory on a file server .
The basic format is:
\\servername\sharename
where "servername" is the hostname of a network file server, and "sharename" is the name of a networked or shared directory. Note this is not the same as the conventional MS-DOS "C:\windows" directory name. E.g.
\\server1\dave
might be set up to point to
C:\users\homedirs\dave
on a server called "server1".
It is possible to execute a program using this convention without having to specifically link a drive, by running:
\\server\share\directory\program.exe
The undocumented DOS command, TRUENAME can be used to find out the UNC name of a file or directory on a network drive.
(1995-11-14)