Mapped Drive VS Server

I have a server with all my images on as I have far too many for a mapped HJDD. I’ve just downloaded Darktable, but find I can’t import any of my images as it won’t show anything but my mapped drives.

Is there any way around this?

How do you access those images with other programs?
And how many is “far too many” (10 000, 100 000, 1 million, …)?

All my digital images sine 2000. So. Heaps.

I wirelessly access them from my server. At present lightroom recognises the drive. But dark table doesnt

Which os and darktable version?

Windows
darktable 3.0.2