From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-11

Q: What is DavWWWRoot and why does Microsoft use it for WebDAV mappings?
A: It is a Microsoft-invented "syngthetic share name" & it's very useful!

This offshoot thread is focused only on the Microsoft invented synthetic
share name DavWWWRoot, what it is, and why Microsoft created it for
Windows, and how it applies to mobile device file system interoperability.

Since the applicability to Android and iOS filesystem interoperability is powerful, it's important to understand that DavWWWRoot is a Windows
mechanism that lets a mobile device with a free WebDav server running to
appear as a real drive letter using only two simple steps, with no rooting required.

STEP 1:
Install any free WebDAV server on iOS or Android and select the root of
the visible filesystem. (Note that Android does not enforce a strict
document root, so a WebDAV server may expose most of the accessible
Android storage layers.)

STEP 2:

net use Z: \\192.168.1.2@8000\DavWWWRoot /USER:joe * /PERSISTENT:YES

After those two steps, Windows now treats the visible mobile device
filesystem as a normal drive letter. Applications can read and write to it, Save dialogs can target it, and scripts can use it just like any other
mapped drive.

Note: Android WebDAV servers often appear to expose more than the chosen
root because Android does not enforce a real document root boundary. The
WebDAV app simply exposes every directory Android allows it to see, and Android's storage layout contains many fuse mounted paths that look like separate top level folders. It is not exposing the true root filesystem,
only the accessible storage layers.

This works because DavWWWRoot is the Windows namespace shim that connects
the UNC path model to the WebDAV redirector. The WebDAV server on the
phone does not know or care about DavWWWRoot. It is entirely a Windows construct that allows the mapping to behave like a real filesystem.

The synthetic share name DavWWWRoot exists only because Windows needs a
fake share name when mapping WebDAV as a drive. SMB has real shares, but
WebDAV does not, so Microsoft invented DavWWWRoot to satisfy the UNC
parser.

Windows treats a WebDAV mapping like a UNC path:

\\server\share

But WebDAV servers do not have shares. They have URLs. To bridge that
gap, Microsoft uses DavWWWRoot as a placeholder that means "start at the
root of the WebDAV server".

When we type:

\\192.168.1.2@8000\DavWWWRoot\folder\file.apk

Windows internally converts it to:

http://192.168.1.2:8000/folder/file.apk

The Windows WebDAV redirector then sends normal WebDAV requests to the
server and maps the results into a filesystem view. This is why the
mapping works so smoothly, and why DavWWWRoot has no meaning on Android
or iOS.

DavWWWRoot is entirely a Windows construct.
1. DavWWWRoot is not on the phone.
2. It is a Windows namespace shim.
3. It tells Windows to treat the WebDAV server root as a mapped drive.
4. It works because the WebDAV redirector translates UNC paths into HTTP
WebDAV requests.

Windows treats davwwwroot as a case insensitive token because it is not a
real directory name. It is a Windows invented namespace placeholder, and Windows parses it the same way it parses UNC share names, which are also
case insensitive.
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