A customer recently sent us a screenshot of System Properties in Control Panel showing that his System Protection tab was missing. Launching the tab by its executable, SystemProtectionProperties.exe, did not launch the tab, either. In this case, the...

A number of third-party blogs are telling people they can speed up Windows Update downloads, and file copy operations, by turning off the Remote Differential Compression (RDC) feature on Windows Vista. This is 100% false. Neither Windows Update or file...

I'll discuss how to configure a UNIX based NFS client to connect to Windows Server for NFS using Kerberos security with RPCSEC_GSS. Traditionally NFS clients and servers use AUTH_SYS security. This essentially allows the clients to send authentication...

It’s common to find forum questions about DFSR not replicating *.bak files. By default DFSR has file filter on replicated folder that excludes the files with names starting ~ or files with extension *.tmp or *.bak from replication. You can change...

If you work with storage, you probably already heard about the “4K Sector Drives”, “Advanced Format Drives” and “512e drives”. These new “4K sector drives” abandon the traditional use of 512 bytes per sector...

Customers frequently ask us how to manually extract files from zip files created by Backup. Though using the Restore Files wizard is the preferred method, there are times when you must extract files manually, such as when you are using a computer that...

A blog reader recently asked us how to synchronize Offline Files from the command prompt instead of from the Sync Center as described in a previous blog post . Good question! Synchronizing Offline Files from the command line is performed using a WMI script...

I’ve seen numerous newsgroup customers report that they can’t restore files from a file-based backup. In this post I cover two common problems, their causes, and how to solve them. “I tried to restore files from a backup but there are no files listed...

A customer recently asked us to clarify the 1-TB DFS Replication limit described in an earlier post . Shobana Balakrishnan, our DFS Replication program manager, explains: There are no architectural underpinnings of the 1TB limit – it is merely what...

We just introduced the world to the File Classification Infrastructure ( Windows Server 2008 R2 File Classification Infrastructure – Managing data based on business value ). Now let us show you how to set up your file server to classify files. Setup...

Previous articles in this series contained an introduction to the SYSVOL migration procedure and explained how the Dfsrmig.exe tool can be used for SYSVOL migration. Keeping this background information in mind, we’re now ready to start the actual SYSVOL...

We recently received an email from a customer who was seeing sharing violations in the DFS Replication health report, even though the sharing violations were no longer being reported in the DFS Replication event log. He writes: “I recently converted...

The previous post referred to some basic backup/restore jargon. Now, let us investigate what the footprint of the DFS Replication service looks like. The following steps have been performed on a server running Windows Server 2008. Locate working directories...

It's a pleasure to let you know that Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 (which includes the Microsoft iSCSI Software Target 3.3) has been released to manufacturing (RTM). Scott M. Johnson (Program Manager in the File Server Team) has just shared via a...

An ‘under the hood’ change on Windows Server 2008 A previous blog post mentioned some of the more end-user visible new features in Windows Server 2008. There is another less visible design enhancement on Windows Server 2008. Let us explore this...

Backing up data is never a bad idea since it can provide handy insurance against accidental data loss. The DFS Replication service is designed to interoperate with the backup/restore interfaces exposed by the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS)....

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...

The previous article in this series explained how to migrate replication of the SYSVOL share to the ‘REDIRECTED’ state. In this article, we examine how to complete migration of all domain controllers to the ‘ELIMINATED’ state. Before we begin …...

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...

In this introductory NFS blog post, let me provide you with an overview of Server for NFS feature implementation in Windows Server 2012. Native NFS support with Windows Server started with Windows Server 2003 R2 and has evolved over time with continuous...

Customers often ask about how DFS Namespaces interacts with Offline Files. I asked our new DFS Namespaces PM, Sanjoy Chatterjee, to introduce himself and explain the interaction. I am Sanjoy Chatterjee, the new PM for the DFS group. My goal for posting...

For an overview of File Classification Infrastructure, check Classifying files based on location and content using the File Classification Infrastructure (FCI) in Windows Server 2008 R2 . Previously we showed you how to expire stale data using File Management...

The previous article in this series explained how to migrate replication of the SYSVOL share to the ‘PREPARED’ state. In this article, we examine how to migrate all domain controllers to the ‘REDIRECTED’ state. Before we begin … Before migrating...

Hi, this is Sanjoy Chatterjee, program manager for DFS Namespaces here to talk about client failback. Several branch office failure scenarios can result in client being bound indefinitely to a remote server even after availability to their local, preferred...

[Updating with minor edits for clarify] Customers frequently ask about the “primary member” designation in DFS Replication. Although this sounds like it could be a single master setting (meaning that content only originates and changes on this member...