I am trying to set up a network place shortcut to a web folder,

the web address is changed by windows in 2 ways;
(i) the http: is missed off
(ii) the forward slashes are changed to back slashes

the resulting folder in My Network places is empty, it does not open the
target web folder and I do not get asked for a username and password which
are necessary for me to access this web folder

I have successfully set this up on another laptop, but cannot figure out why
it doesn't work this time on this laptop