Uniform Naming Convention

<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.

Nearby terms:
Unified Modeling Language « unifier « UNIFORM « Uniform Naming Convention » Uniform Resource Citation » Uniform Resource Locater » Uniform Resource Locator