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Can a DFS share be used for Folder Redirection?

Corey
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  • You can, but we had a weird issue that Microsoft wasn't able to resolve related to DFS, and redirected folders in a 2003 terminal server environment several years ago. We haven't retried it in 2008. – Zoredache Aug 17 '10 at 21:15

3 Answers3

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This is actually covered in Microsoft's FAQ for DFS. The answer is, it depends. Mostly yes but not recommended if using replication. DFS-R is made for replicating mostly static files. Users' documents change a lot and DFS-R may not be efficient at replicating the changes.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/dfs/dfsfaq.mspx#EWKAC See the question, "Can I use DFS with Offline Files and redirected My Documents folders?"

Jason Berg
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  • I've also seen wierd conflicts between offline files conflict resolution and DFS replication. Wouldn't recommend DFS if you're also using offline files. – Chris Thorpe Aug 18 '10 at 04:26
  • you don't need CSC if you just want folder redirection, but I do agree that the two together can cause conficts. – tony roth Aug 18 '10 at 14:13
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DFS Share can aggregate multiple shares in to a single logical tree (so it all appears as one directory structure).

For Example, take:

\\ServerA\Share1
\\ServerB\Share2

And make:

\\example.com\DFS
    \Share1
    \Share2

They can also be the target of client folder redirection.

And they can do a whole lot more...

Chris S
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  • Not sure how multiple shares in a target relates. But I agree it does work. If with just a single target DFS is useful to make it so your configuration isn't hard coded to a specific server name. – Zoredache Aug 17 '10 at 21:16
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if you have multiple sites dfs and multiple targets folder redirection can cause issues if the sites are not done correctly.

tony roth
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