When selecting a remote share in Windows Explorer the user interface may appear to hang for a short period and you may see the blue circle spinning during this time. This period could be up to ten minutes, after which the Explorer window will work as expected.

This issue will repeat if you reselect that folder in Windows Explorer.

This issue can occur when all of the following circumstances are true:

• The remote share is a Distributed File System (DFS) root.
• The DFS root target share is set to Files or programs from the share will not be available offline setting.
• The Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 client has the share path UNC for that DFS root in its client-side cache.
• There are multiple DFS root targets.

This hang or delay may be longer if the DFS root targets are distributed to network locations and sites remote from the client.

Consider the following scenario:

• On a computer that is running Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (SP2) or Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2), you open a network folder in Windows Explorer.
• The network folder contains folders that are linked to the Distributed File System (DFS).
• You perform a search in the network folder in Windows Explorer.

In this scenario, the search does not return results for files or for folders that are under the DFS-linked network shares.

You log on to your Windows Vista desktop computer by using your regular domain account. When use other credentials to map to a Distributed File System (DFS) share, you receive the following error message:

ERROR_NO_SUCH_LOGON_SESSION winerror. A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated.

Consider the following scenario in a network environment:

• A domain-based Distributed File System (DFS) root is hosted by multiple domain controllers.
• A DFS shared folder is linked to a network share that resides on another server.
• On a client computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, you map a network drive to the DFS shared folder.
• The domain controller to which the client computer is connected goes offline.
• You restart the client computer.

In this scenario, it takes a long time to log on to the client computer after it restarts. After you log on to the client computer, you try to access the mapped network drive. However, you cannot access the drive, even though the other domain controllers and the server that hosts the network share are available. Additionally, you receive following error message:

Error:

Location is not available
Drive:\ is not accessible.
The network location cannot be reached. For information about network troubleshooting, see Windows Help.

On a Windows Vista-based computer or on a Windows Server 2008-based computer, you copy a file to a Distributed File System (DFS) shared folder in Windows Explorer. However, even though the shared folder has sufficient disk space, the file copy operation may not be successful. Additionally, you may receive the following error message:

The selected files could not be copied. There is not enough free space on the device.

When you check the free space for the DFS shared folder in Windows Explorer, Windows Explorer displays an amount of space that is less than what is actually available on the file server.

On a Windows Vista-based computer or on a Windows Server 2008-based client computer, you create a shortcut to a DFS link in the Favorite Links folder (%Userprofile%\Links). However, when you try to click the shortcut in Windows Explorer, the contents of the DFS share do not appear.

Note: This problem does not occur if the shortcut points to a DFS root folder or if the shortcut uses the UNC path for the target share.

On a Windows Vista-based computer, you want to suspend a Distributed File System (DFS) share root or directory tree by using the SuspendRoot method. You expect that this operation requires you to have only the local administrator permission on the computer. However, you cannot suspend the DFS share root or directory tree unless you also have read permission to the DFS.

On a Windows Vista-based computer, you want to suspend a Distributed File System (DFS) share root or directory tree by using the SuspendRoot method. You expect that this operation requires you to have only the local administrator permission on the computer. However, you cannot suspend the DFS share root or directory tree unless you also have read permission to the DFS.

On a Windows Vista-based computer, you use Windows Explorer to copy a file to a Distributed File System (DFS) shared folder. However, even though there is sufficient free space in the shared folder, the file copy operation may fail. Additionally, you may receive the following error message:

The selected files could not be copied. There is not enough free space on the device.

When you use Windows Explorer to check the free space of the DFS shared folder, Windows Explorer displays an amount of space that is less than what is actually available on the file server.

In Windows Vista Enterprise, you use the Distributed File System (DFS) together with the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). However, VSS does not show whether the DFS path is the same as the physical path. For example, assume that the DFS path is as follows:

\\myfiles\storage\[alias [file:///\\myfiles\storage\%3calias]]

Assume that the physical path is as follows:

\\severname\FSXX\[alias [file:///\\severname\FSXX\%3calias]]

In this example, VSS does not show whether the alias directory of the DFS path is the same as the alias directory of the physical path.