Our organisation is starting to look at moving file data from regular file servers to SharePoint Online document libraries. We would like to be able to present some of these libraries to certain users as box-standard network drives. This is to ease the transition to SharePoint, support legacy applications that don't understand SharePoint and umpteen other reasons known only to people in management.
Previously I've done this by using a little C# application which reads registry settings from HKCU that are pushed out by Group Policy. The app spawns an invisible IE window, automates the authentication process by clicking buttons, entering fields etc. and once finally authenticated, it passes a call to the OS to map the Document Library URL as a network drive.
Unfortunately it seems that at the end of the month, MS is going to change the logon screen and the tickbox to keep you signed in doesn't look to be present in the new version of the page, which I understand is a requirement to map a Document Library as a network drive.
I'm looking at writing a new version of the app which doesn't use invisible IE windows, instead passing a call to SharePoint directly using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client and making use of ClientContext and SharePointOnlineCredentials to get access to the authentication cookie. This all works fine, however despite keeping the cookie in memory while the application runs, the call to the OS to map the URL as a network drive doesn't seem to do anything.
Just wondering if anyone has tried something similar and if so, how you went about it?
Kind regards and many thanks in advance for any advice!