Classic ASP: replacing a string - vbscript

Question

The following code:
Dim url
url = fso.GetAbsolutePathName(objFile)
gives me
C:\KB\Dev\Java.htm
Then, when I write it as an href:
Response.Write("<a href='" + url + "'>" + objFile.Name + "</a><br>")
the link is translated in browser into:
file:///C:/KB/Dev/Java/Java.htm
whereas I will need it to be
file://172.20.4.107/c$/KB/Dev/Java/Java.htm
or else, the link won't be valid for navigation.
I was trying:
url = Replace(url, "///", "//172.20.4.107/")
url = Replace(url, "c:", "c$")
Response.Write(url & "<br>")
but nothing seems to be changed.

Answer 1

What #Keith suggested is absolutely fine but you will encounter issue with various degrees in most modern browsers due to hyper linking from local file links being blocked as they're a security risk.
A more robust solution is to not use local file links and negate the risk completely. If you have access to IIS (If you are using Classic ASP you likely have access to IIS in some form) you can do this by creating a Virtual Directory that points to your remote computer share and lock down the permissions as you see fit.
Say you set-up a Virtual Directory to point to alias KB you could then access it;
http://yourhost/KB/dev/java.htm
If the Virtual Directory was mapped to
\\172.20.4.107\c$\KB\
However we can take it a stage further, Admin Shares such as c$ are not configurable and there for the system to use. To have better control over the mapped directory create a share KB for example on the remote computer and set the NTFS permissions as appropriate then point the Virtual Directory to;
\\172.20.4.107\KB\
You can also call the share KB$ to hide the share from network browsers.
\\172.20.4.107\KB$\
Useful Links
How to create a virtual directory on an existing Web site to a folder that resides on a remote computer

Answer 2

You're trying to replace /// but these characters are not in your url variable. url is C:\KB\Dev\Java.htm.
Try this instead:
url = Replace(url, "\", "/")
url = Replace(url, "C:/", "file://172.20.4.107/c$/")
Also keep in mind that it is the end user's browser that is converting your C:\... path to the file://... format. That is not happening in your ASP code.