# Best practice Solution for exposing Windows file share (UNC path) contents to Perspective users **URL:** \ **Category:** Ignition\ **Tags:** perspective\ **Created:** [July 7, 2026, 5:22am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/best-practice-solution-for-exposing-windows-file-share-unc-path-contents-to-perspective-users/116292 "2026-07-07T05:22:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 2
**Author:** ![lane.duncan](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/lane.duncan/32/83700_2.png) [@lane.duncan](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/lane.duncan)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2026, 6:20am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/best-practice-solution-for-exposing-windows-file-share-unc-path-contents-to-perspective-users/116292/2 "2026-07-07T06:20:10Z")
Some food for thought: 1. If you can move all the files to a database, then the Automation Professionals Blob Server module might be a useful tool. It might be quite a bit of work, but you may end up with a better solution in the long run: > [@Automation Professionals' Blob Server Module](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/automation-professionals-blob-server-module/57970): > > Automation Professionals is pleased to announce an alpha release of its new Blob Server Module. Available only for Ignition v8.1, here. The Blob Server Module provides a simple way to deliver images, PDF files, or other binary content from a database to your Perspective clients or other web applications. Without needing the WebDev module. All you need is a Named Query that has appropriate security settings and returns a single row with two columns: Content, and ContentType. Modest documentati… 1. You are correct that the browser limitations will be a never ending challenge. Every browser security update can easily turn into a new project. In the long term it may be better to use Vision for this purpose. It doesn’t have to replace the entire system, but perhaps a separate Vision project just for selecting/viewing documentation would be appropriate. 2. Break this task down into separate tasks for each file type. How you handle a PDF might be totally different from how you handle a CAD file. 3. Learning how to build a 3rd party scripting module in Java may open up a lot tools that you can use. 4. I have some scripts that produce custom Excel spreadsheets. I stop my script at system.perspective.download and let the end user figure it out from there. 100% of my end users know how to open a spreadsheet located on the local file system. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/best-practice-solution-for-exposing-windows-file-share-unc-path-contents-to-perspective-users/116292)._