Problem:
An application may only run correctly from a mounted mapped network drive, however system administrators do not want to have the mounted drive visible to all users. Use of UNC, administrative shares and/or read-only shares are inadequate or do not allow full functionality of the software.

A UNC share appears as: \\servername\sharename\
A mapped drive appears as: Q:\Applications

Solution:
Create a mapped network drive and use Group Policies to hide the drive.

See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/231289 for detailed information.

Alternatively perform an Internet search for the terms 'hide drive policies'

Note that the hexadecimal values for the drive letters should be added to obtain the appropriate setting value:

a=1	b=2	c=4
d=8	e=16	f=32
g=64	h=128	i=256
j=512	k=1024	l=2048
m=4096	n=8192	o=16384
p=32768	q=65536	r=131072
s=262144	t=524288	u=1048576
v=2097152	w=4194304	x=8388608
y=16777216	z=33554432

Add the name, value and associated string text to a new .adm file and apply through your policies.

Caution, you are not advised to amend the system.adm.
You should always create a custom.adm file to apply such policies.

Alternative:
Use a commercial (or opensource) administration package to perform desktop security and 'lock-down' functions on your workstations.