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Overview In this blog post, let me introduce you to the new DFS Namespaces (DFSN) Windows PowerShell cmdlets that we have added in Windows Server 2012. Windows PowerShell is designed for automation and complex scripting, in part due to its powerful pipelining feature. Its object-based design streamlines...

In this blog post, let me touch on a topic that I frequently get questions on from customers. Most namespace scalability questions are along one of the following lines: I want to put x number of DFS folders in one DFS namespace, does this work? Does this matter if I put these x DFS folders into...

The DFS-N test team has completed some extensive Performance and Scalability testing and we wanted to share some of the results. To start, here is a comparison of the performance of adding links to a standalone namespace. It includes data for Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server...

Jose Barreto has a new blog post to help you understand how to design your DFS Namespaces. He covers three options to create a namespace that points a few folders in three different file servers: Simple mapping of shares Flattening out the tree in the namespace Reversing the original tree...

Jose Barreto has a new blog post to help you understand how to use the DFSDIAG.EXE tool to check your DFS-Namespaces (DFS-N) configuration. DFSDIAG, which was introduced in Windows Server 2008 and improved in Windows Server 2008 R2, has five types of checks: Checking domain controller configuration...

Microsoft released the File Server Migration Toolkit version 1.2 (FSMT 1.2), which will help you migrate file shares from computers running Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Storage Server 2008 to computers running Windows 2003 Server, Windows...

Whenever you’re deploying Windows Server DFS-Namespaces, you will need to figure out how many servers will be required. Although we never really had any problems with performance of the namespace server themselves, the question of where to place them is quite common. A single namespace server can...

Jose Barreto has a new blog post covering details of the behavior of Windows Server 2008 DFS-N (Distributed File System - Namespaces) clients by looking at network traces. His main goal is to show the interaction between a DFS-N client, a domain controller, a namespace server and a file server. These...

Jose Barreto has a new blog post covering the basics of the Distributed File System (DFS) in Windows Server 2008, which offers users simplified access to a set of file shares and helps administrators easily maintain the file server infrastructure behind those file shares, including options for load sharing...

We are glad to announce the release of Microsoft File Server Migration Toolkit 1.1 ! With this version you will be able to migrate and consolidate shared folders from servers running Windows NT Server 4.0, Windows 2000 family of servers, Windows 2003 family of servers, Windows Server 2008, or Windows...

So you have heard about a tool DFSDiag which is meant to be used to help you diagnose your DFS Namespace. You just type DFSDiag.exe and... voilà you got the list of the commands you can use. Oh yes you also have the “DFSDIAG_ERROR” message, but that’s because DFSDiag expect one...

If you opened a file, and in the meanwhile the connection to the server was lost, and you don’t have CSC enabled, any further attempt to read/write will fail. DFS Failover is only performed when the client opens a file or folder. It does not apply for files or folders that are already open. In...

Access-based Enumeration allows users to list only the files and folders to which they have access when browsing content on the File Server. ABE was first introduced in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, eliminating the confusion of connecting to a file server and seeing a large number of files that...

If the clients can only access and view a subset of files or folders present in a shared folder, it might be for one of the following reasons: 1. Share and NTFS permission Please check if you have granted the users with the different Share and NTFS permissions on these share folders and files. We need...

DFS Namespaces or DFSN management command line tools are available on Windows Server 2008 and also on Windows Vista SP1 as part of the Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT). The three available tools are Dfsutil.exe, Dfscmd.exe and Dfsdiag.exe. To install DFSUtil, DFSDiag and DFScmd on...

Namespace administration can be delegated. This is a change as of Windows 2003 SP1 and requires the DFSMGMT.MSC management console, first available in Windows 2003 R2, for ease of access. In that console, you should see a "Delegate Management Permissions" as you navigate to a given namespace...

When you create namespace folders (links) using DFSUtil in Windows Server 2008, the namespaces links are lowercase. This is a known issue, and as a work around, you can use dfscmd /map to create Uppercase links in DFS namespace. Ganesh Prasad

The DFS Namespaces team would like to know more about how you use DFSDiag.exe. We'd like to hear your current experience with it: 1. How widely do you use it. 2. How do you think we can improve the current features the tool has. 3. What are the features/test that you think should be incorporated....

For those who missed Drew McDaniel’s Live webcast “Deep Dive into Windows Server 2008 File Services”, you now can now view the recording: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/mseventsbmo/view?id=1032381104&role=attend&pw=3B160CB1 Enjoy! -- Malu Menezes

IT Manager Webcast: Deep Dive into Windows Server 2008 File Services (Level 300) Thursday, July 17, 2008 9:30 AM Pacific Time The Windows Server 2008 operating system contains many changes to core file services components that dramatically increase availability, scalability, and performance. This...

When we shipped Windows Server 2003 R2 , many customers requested a way to enable and disable referrals for a link target using command line. Neither dfscmd.exe nor dfsutil.exe back then provided a way to do this. In response to those requests, Dan Lovinger published Modlink , command-line method to...

1. New Command Line Interface (CLI) DFSUtil.exe in Windows Server 2008 comes with a new CLI, which is based on Keywords, Required Parameters and Optional parameters instead of Switches and Arguments. With this change, we intend to make the usage of the commands clearer and easier. Navigation through...

DFS Namespaces or DFSN management command line tools are available on Windows Server 2008 and also on Windows Vista SP1 as part of the Microsoft Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT). The three available tools are Dfsutil.exe, Dfscmd.exe and Dfsdiag.exe. In this posting I will show some exploratory...

The DFS Namespaces team is excited to announce upcoming support for domain-based namespaces that exceed the previous size recommendation of 5,000 folders with targets in a namespace. Starting in Windows Server 2008, you will be able to use the DFS Management snap-in to create a new domain-based namespace...

We've updated our Current Hotfixes for DFS Replication and DFS Namespaces page with a new hotfix for DFSR and new column to describe where each hotfix is available. We do keep this page as up-to-date as possible so check back periodically for new updates. --Jill