An
operating system driver that sends data to
and receives data from a remote device. A network redirector
often provides mechanisms to locate, open, read, write, and
delete files and submit print jobs.
It also makes available application services such as
named pipes and mailslots. When an application needs to send or
receive data from a remote device, it sends a call to the
redirector. The redirector provides the functionality of the
Application layer and
Presentation layer of the
OSI
model.
In
Microsoft Networking, the network redirectors are
implemented as installable file systems (IFS).