Hello

I need a solution for the following software design problem. I would like to merge an external Controller as a net drive. The communication to the controller is based on a special protocol.
How can I make it possible, that I can use the hole functionality of the Windows shell and the Windows explorer, like drag & drop , file-access etc.

Momentarily I have a software that creates a folder within a hard-disk drive and then it makes an exact copy of the external Controller folder. Then it looks for any read or write access to this special folder and tries to do the same to the controller. So if I drop a file to the folder, the software will make a copy of this file to the controller. If the copy to the controller failed, the software must kill the copy in the special folder that both folders have the same contents. So far so good, but there a some problems with this kind of solution. If you make a CTRL-X to move a file from one folder to the special folder and the software cant copy - because the Controller is busy - then there is a problem. The copy from the folder to the special folder succeeded -- so windows delete the source. Then the copy to the controller failed -- the software deletes the file in the special folder because both contents must be the same.

Perfect all files deleted. ;-)

Is it possible that I can retard the result of the windows copy during the copy to the controller?

Did I have to write a special device driver or network driver or what is the easiest solution for integration of an external controller in the windows system.

Do you know any framework for this problem.

The solution have to work under win98, NT,Win2000 and XP.

Thanks a lot for your help

Wolfram