DFS link inaccessible

[Michael Lynch]

I recently created a DFS root on a shared folder on a file
server. I linked it to a shared folder on a different hard
drive on the same computer, with, of course, a different
drive letter. When I created a DFS link to this folder,
the folder showed up fine in the DFS root folder, but
whenever anyone tries to access it, we get
an "E:\CAD\CAD_new is not accessible". I rebooted the
server after created all the DFS stuff, I've checked all
the security settings so that the proper permissions were
in place, but no dice. Did I miss something, or can you
not DFS link to a volume on the same server as the root?

 

[Jill Zoeller [MSFT]]

I can't quite tell from your description how you've got things set up. Can
you give exact details about the namespace you set up, including the target
shared folders for your root and link? Also, have you tried rebooting the
clients?

 

[Michael Lynch]

Thanks for the reply, Jill. I rebooted the clients and
that did the trick. I hadn't seen anything on that in the
documentation. I did see about rebooting the server, but
not the clients. Thanks again.

 

[Jill Zoeller [MSFT]]

Glad this worked! I'm not sure which docs you checked but this is a more
technical issue that's not covered in the Help (to my knowledge anyway).
Below is the explanation and a pointer to docs that do cover this:

Clients keep track of the type of shares they access (for example, regular
shares and DFS shares) in a cache known as the multiple UNC provider (MUP)
cache. If a share changes from one type to another, the client might not
access the share correctly, which sounds like the problem you experienced.
Rebooting the client clears this cache. There is also a parameter in the
Support Tool named Dfsutil that will purge this cache.

If you would like more info, see the DFS Technical Reference at
www.microsoft.com/dfs. The doc you want is called "How DFS Works" and
relevant sections include:

DFS Physical Structures and Caches on DFS Clients
DFS-Related Processes on Clients