Make mapped network drive appear as local drive

Is this some sort of performance testing software, I can't think up many situations where software would restrict the use of a normal mapped network drive.

I have found a program that might do what you are looking for though. http://www.ntwind.com/software/utilities/visual-subst.html

Perhaps you could setup an ISCSI device on your network storage device ? This seems to be supported by windows 7 and would allow a more natural solution.

Fair warning there is something to be said about fooling windows into thinking you have a local drive that is on the network and it starts treating it like one you might cause some inherent serious slowdowns on your overall PCs performance if not setup well ( I cannot vouch for any of the software ).

Some very old issues on server fault go into this for example: https://serverfault.com/questions/30669/winxp-map-network-location-to-local-folder

Please let me know if it helps you.

Having exited the Windows world in 2003, not sure if this still works or the command still exists, but the subst command might help: it allows you to create a new drive letter from a local path. It has helped me trick programs into using network storage in NT4 and Windows 2000. You probably want to make sure the software doesn't make assumptions that are broken when on a network such as concurrent access by multiple users.