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Here's the scenario.

  • Client - Windows 7 workstation
  • ServerA - Windows 2008 file server
  • ServerB - Windows 2008 file server

On ServerA:

mklink /D c:\Share\Link \\ServerB\Share\Dest

That works great. It's what happens on the client that's of interest.

What I want to happen on the client as you drill down into the folders:

\\ServerA\Share
\\ServerA\Share\Link
\\ServerA\Share\Link\Folder1... etc

I.e. seamless access across the link, and the user doesn't even have to know we've linked to somewhere else.

What actually happens is:

\\ServerA\Share
\\ServerA\Share\Link

When you drill into Link, the path switches! The link is literally followed to ServerB.

\\ServerB\Share\Dest
\\ServerB\Share\Dest\Folder1... etc.

Is there anything that can be done to allow the client to follow the link seamlessly / transparently?

Note: even though drilling down causes the path to switch to ServerB, typing in a full path using ServerA works perfectly across the link.

\\ServerA\Share\Link\Folder1

Note: this does not happen with links made using /J, but since I need to link to another server (Remote to Remote), I don't have the luxury of using /J

Sandra
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    Oh, and I know DFS is a better solution and am working on that as we speak. But in the meantime, I'd like to see if I can fix this glitch. – Sandra Jan 12 '16 at 14:54
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    I'm not able to reproduce this issue. When I try this from a Windows 7/2012 R2 client, it accesses the resource transparently without changing the address bar. If you type from the command prompt: `dir \\ServerA\Share\Link\` what is displayed in the output? Does it display `Directory of \\ServerA\Share\Link\` ? – Greg Askew Jan 12 '16 at 15:46
  • Well! Because you couldn't reproduce it, I tried what you said and it did show \\ServerA\Share\Link. Then I realized that I'm using xplorer2, and lo and behold, it has different behaviour than Windows Explorer! Who would have thought following symbolic links was not part of the file system (i.e. handled by Windows), but rather done by individual tools you might be using to access it! – Sandra Jan 12 '16 at 16:04
  • And what if you would use `mklink /J` instead of `mklink /D`? Maybe it would work with Xplorer2 too? – Tomas Dabasinskas Mar 18 '16 at 08:01

0 Answers0