Move Folder Redirection to a new server

[Michael Pietroforte]

A reader asked how to move Folder Redirection to a new server. What things have to be considered when clients are redirected to the new server?

[Joseph Moody]

If the folder sizes are small enough, you can let folder redirection move the content of the documents. This will slow down the logon time.

You can also use xcopy and prestage the documents on the new server.

[Kyle Beckman]

Since the old server doesn’t exist any more, this should actually be fairly easy.  Re-build your server or recover the system from backup.  Rebuild the file system, permissions, and shares.  Ensure that the rebuilt server has the same name as the old server and you should be good to go.  Just make sure to delete the DNS entry for the old server (even though it is the same name) in your AD-integrated zone and allow the rebuilt server to recreate the record or else it will linger until it is scavenged and could cause problems.  Changing the name of the server is just asking for a lot of unnecessary extra work; keeping the same name will get your users back up and running faster.

[r a]

Thanks for your reply

One problem is that I do not know how do it when I use server with another name.

I restore backup to new server and what is next step?

[r a]

I think about that I restore to new server, with new name and SID

[Kyle Beckman]

Folder Redirection doesn’t care about the SID (as far as I’m aware).  It is just pointing to a DNS or NetBIOS name.  I’ve seen people use DNS CNAME’s to point something like hardtorememberserialnumber.corp.4sysops.com to file1.corp.4sysops.com.  You should be able to delete the Computer object, delete the entry in DNS, and add the new box using the old name to AD.

If you want to use a new name, you’ll just need to update the server name in your Group Policy Object.

[r a]

If I pointed redirected GPO to new server it not work 🙁 I do know what I do wrong

[Kyle Beckman]

Honestly, I’ve been in this situation more than once… the easiest way to resolve this is to use the same name again.  As you’re finding, you’re just creating more work for yourself.

You should probably run a gpresult as one of the users who isn’t being redirected to the new server name to see if the user is getting the policy.  You should probably also check the Event Log and see what errors are showing up there.

Or, you could keep the same server name.  (See a trend here?) 🙂

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