How to create a hyperlink to shared network directory or file?

Question

I've checked the following two related discussions:
1. How do I make a hyperlink to a local executable?
2. An URL to a Windows shared folder
3. File Url Cross Domain Issue in Chrome- Unexpected
4. Firefox Links to local or network pages do not work

The following links work when I visited the website on localhost. That is, http://localhost.

<a href="\\172.21.1.123\DIR">A Shared Network Directory</a>
<a href="file://172.21.1.123\DIR">A Shared Network Directory</a>
<a href="file://///172.21.1.123\DIR">A Shared Network Directory</a>  

But when I visited with http://172.21.1.123, all of above links have no response. The debug console shows that Not allowed to load local resource: file://172.21.1.123/DIR.

Test Environment (Both of them have the same result.):
- Chrome 28.0.1500
- IE 10

If it is due to the security reason, any configuration to turn off? Or any idea?

Answer 1

The reason that you cannot link to a network share from an external/hosted/live site is because of security features of latest browsers like Firefox.

You can only open local network shares from a local HTML document.

The only way around this is to install a plugin for your browser that removes or disables this security feature as far as I know.