Accessing mapped drive from agent running as windows service

Hi,

I have to build projects that contain absolute paths with a mapped drive, for example J:\Assemblies\... I read that a lot of people has this need as well and I didn't found a satisfactory solution.

I know that it's better use UNC paths but I don't have the choice because build files (msbuild format) are generated with absolute paths by the IDE.

I created the mapped drive pointing to a local folder by mapping J: to
MyTCmachine\MyProjects.

I changed the user account of the agent from Local system account to my user account with administrator privileges. However it doesn't see the mapped drive.

I also tried to run agent.bat, and in this case the agent sees the mapped drive.

I'm struggling with this problem and I don't know if there is a solution apart to run the service manually.

I think that if I can create the mapped drive before the agent is started automatically as a service, the mapping will be recognized.

Do you know if we can for example start the window service from a batch file that first creates the mapping (subst command), then starts the agent as a service ? This could resolve the problem.

Otherwise, has anyone a solution or a workaround to this problem ?
Thanks.