While I was building one of my labs to demonstrate the Document ID feature — where you can move documents within a site collection and it reatins your Document ID — I tried to UNC into my SharePoint site \\KLDemo\Documents and I get the typical error “Windows cannot access \\KLDemo\Documents”
In the past turning on the WebClient service fixed the issue but that service no longer exists on Windows Server 2008… Or does it?? Well after banging my head against the wall I decided to install Desktop experience to see if that fixed my issue (Server Manager –> Features –> Add New Feature –> Desktop Experience)
Turns out the WebClient Service does exist for Server 2008 you just have to install the desktop experience to get it there.
How to access SharePoint using UNC
If your site is under port 80 you can use \\kldemo\Documents
But what happens if your SharePoint site is under a different port? Just replace the : with an @ symbol so you end up with \\kldemo@81\Documents
