We’ve seen numerous questions lately regarding the use of Offline Files against a NAS device. Customers report that Windows XP clients work fine against a particular NAS device but Windows Vista clients do not. The reason for this difference is that Offline...

A newsgroup customer recently asked us how to synchronize his Offline Files with a server after the server had been renamed. Offline Files in Windows Vista provides scripting support to enable users to write custom scripts to perform such tasks. To illustrate...

Some customers pointed out what they believe to be a bug in Robocopy. The situation is: suppose that you copy your files using Robocopy in Windows Server 2003 or XP. Then, file or folder permissions (ACLs) are changed wither on source or destination....

Hi, this is Scott Johnson and I’m a Program Manager on the Windows File Server team. I’ve been at Microsoft for 17 years and I’ve seen a lot of cool technology in that time. Inside Windows Server 2012 we have included a pretty cool new feature called...

Many customers have asked questions in our forums on how to understand and troubleshoot errors reported by Windows Server Backup. While we document the event IDs logged by Windows Server Backup (for example, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library...

This article answers following questions related to Windows Server Backup in Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2: Q1. How does Windows Server Backup store backups and maintain backup versions? Q2. How do I query backup stored versions on...

The iSCSI Target made its debut as a free download for Windows 2008 R2 in April 2011, since then, there were more than 60,000 downloads. That was the first step to make it available for everyone. Now in Windows Server 2012, no more downloads and separate...

Customizing Windows Server Backup Schedule Windows Server Backup (WSB) is the built-in backup solution for Windows Server 2008 that replaces the venerable NT Backup from Windows Server 2003 and before. WSB protects the files and the server os/application...

This is an update to the solutions table posted previously on this blog. Vista Backup team has been working with customers to troubleshoot common problems, but sometimes it’s a hard job – some error codes belong to other system components...

Beta testers and even MS employees often ask us why restore points take up so much disk space and whether this can be adjusted. I also see the opposite problem reported—testers are surprised that so few restore points are being kept on the system. The...

Several customers have asked us how to move the Offline Files cache location from the default location (c:\windows\csc) to another volume. Here is a procedure for doing this. From an elevated command prompt, run the following command: REG ADD "HKLM...

The File Replication Service (FRS) is used for replicating the contents of the SYSVOL share between Windows domain controllers. However, Windows Server 2008 domain controllers, which are operating in the Windows Server 2008 domain functional level, can...

When it comes to the defragmentation experience, simpler is not always better according to some very vocal Windows gurus. But is Defrag really all that simple? Turns out, there’s quite a bit going on under the covers, especially compared to Defrag in...

A request we’ve received consistently from our customers is – How do I know what DFS Replication is currently doing on my server? In Windows Server 2008 R2, we have attempted to provide a way for administrators to better understand the state of replication...

Hi folks, Ned Pyle here. As promised when I left AskDS and MS Support for greener pastures, I’m still in the blogging game – I told you I’d be back! Let’s start things off talking about improvements in Windows Server 2012 and DFS...

We’ve been hard at work improving on the feature set of the DFS Replication service. Windows Server™ 2008 brings with it an exciting set of enhancements and new features. Here’s a look at what’s new in Windows Server™ 2008. SYSVOL Replication – Now on...

Windows Server 2008 R2 is now available. If you’re eager to know what’s available in R2, please read on. 1. Support for Windows Failover Clusters In Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Failover clusters can be configured to be part of a replication...

This article explains how to install the DFS Replication Service on various flavors/editions of Windows Server 2008. It also explains how to install the DFS Replication service on Windows Server 2008 Core editions. First, let’s take a quick look at which...

Hi, I'm Navjot Virk, program manager for Offline Files in Windows Vista, and I'll be blogging a multi-part series about the new features in Offline Files. Offline Files is a feature of Windows Vista that enables access to files on an SMB server even...

On Windows Server 2008 R2, a Windows Failover cluster can be configured to be a member of a DFSR replication group. This feature can be used to configure highly available replication services. In this three part blog series, let us examine how to configure...

Customers frequently ask us for a way to automatically generate health reports for multiple replication groups. I'm pleased to provide a sample script and instructions, provided by Dan Boldo and Jeff Carollo, respectively. Click here to view the sample...

Shrinking volumes is a cool feature of Windows Vista, but we’re starting to see an interesting side effect—the inability to create a new partition in the newly created unallocated space. Customers who face this problem almost always have a new computer...

<This is the second post in a blog series on backup and recovery offerings in Windows 7. > In the last post, we’ve briefly mentioned that Windows 7 offers both the ability to backup individual folders and to create a system image of your computer...

<This is the third post in a blog series on backup and recovery offerings in Windows 7. > Many of us have experienced this panic moment when we realized some important files are missing or are accidentally modified, but Windows users who’ve configured...

This blog applies to Automatic Disk Usage management and Version Management for versions lying on local disk. This does not apply to versions lying on Network shares. Windows Server Backup Overview Windows Server Backup is the built-in backup...