In the process of setting up MC 22.0088 I needed to go into the Tools->Options dialog box and then into the File Location sub-section. This on a win7pro x64 install.
Each location has a ... pathname. Select it brings up a file i/o dialog box. There's a editable text entry box on the top of that dialog that shows the current path. I'd hoped to be able to type the desired path into that box and have it stored as the new value. It allows typing, but does not save it. Nor does it 'jump' to the typed location. That is, when typing any path it did not scroll the tree outline below to that path location. UNC or local, didn't matter, no save, no move to that point on the tree.
Using that dialog I can manually descend through the tree Nework+Server+Share+folder and the dialog picks up on the clicked item and puts that into the text field at the top of the dialog. And that value does gets saved into the desired path location.
Windows file dialogs have had their share of difficulties over the years. Personally I greatly prefer dialogs that allow typing pathnames, not ones that force using just the tree outline.
I don't know how previous versions handled this, but I'd guess they worked otherwise I'd have picked up on this before.