My ultimate goal is to allow users to select a file from a dialog as if they are uploading a file. Instead of file being saved to the server, a hyperlink will be generated from the file's path. This hyperlink will then be used on our intranet page in order to open the file located on our network share. Is there any practical way to accomplish this?
I have tried both an HTML file type insert and .Net's FileUpload Control but neither will work since for security reasons the full path of the file is never accessible.
The intranet site is built in VB.Net.
You would not be able to do this through a regular web page, since a web site gaining access to a file's path would be a gross security violation. One thing you could do is have a control on your page where the server creates a file tree from browsing the network share. Then the user would select the file path from this server-generated tree.