Acess to local files. Can it be done?

[frostbitten]

The premise: Our company uses a program for EMR (Electronic Medical Records). We want to build a "tab" for the doctors to click on.
What?: This "tab" is a link built by the application which will send either get or post variables with credentials such as username, medical record number, etc.
Why?: Doctors want access to a folder on our intranet within the program. (The link is opened inside the application)
So what's wrong?: We need authentication. Doctor Smith should be able to click the "tab" and proceed to "\\server\Smith\". The only way to transfer his user name would be through get/post variables.

My explorations:
I searched far and long for a solution. PHP redirects, meta refresh. Even a simple link. Nothing. The security of internet explorer prevents such an action to take place. But, maybe with Active X or some other shunned scripting would this be possible? Has anyone had experiece with accessing local files via a website before?

The ultimate goal is to click a link and have the local folder open.

Any experience or advice would be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

-frostbitten

[djlebarron]

Just to clarify...

In your scenario, Dr. Smith is trying to access your intranet folder via an external www internet connnection? Am I correct in my interpretation?

I can't offer any specific resources, but I have seen programs advertised that alledgedly allow an authorized user to:
Access anything on his/her computer via any other computer & internet connection, anywhere in the world.

With the addition of a little front end php/pathway work, it sounds like it might be worth looking into. If that doesn't work, could the technology I mentioned be used in combination with your program automatically and additionally putting the information in folders outside of the program and setting up permission critera for that/those folder/folders?