I have some applications that won't see a mapped network drive.  Is
there any way to trick windows xp into seeing a network drive as a
local drive?

The Subst command works a little differently to the Net Use command.
It may allow the application to access the network drive where mapping
a drive does not.

It's built in to Windows XP/2000
An Example of its use would be

SUBST J: \\servernamehere\sharenamehere\

It will also allow you to drill down in to the share to access/map a
subfolder within that share.

The command syntax is: 

SUBST

Substitute a drive letter for a network or local path.

Syntax
      SUBST drive_letter: path
   
      SUBST 
   
      SUBST drive_letter: /D

Key
   SUBST with no parameters will display current SUBST drives

   /D : Delete the drive_letter substitution.Compared to mapping a
drive with NET USE the SUBST command allows mapping to a subfolder of
a drive share - for the storage of user profiles this reduces the
number of shares you need to create on the server.


Good Luck

Travel on over to My Computer.
From the "Tools" menu, select "Map Network Drive".
Assign a drive letter (such a Z:) and a folder (ie.
//ComputerName/FolderToAccess). Next and you're done!
This may already be what you're doing but... oh well.

Good luck!