Environment
Windows 2008 R2 File Server running DFS
Windows 7 32bit Clients
Issue
We had a few users in our environment reporting that when they scanned files into the fileserver, they would not be immediately visible when accessing the location from a mapped network drive.
Eventually the files would show up, but it was not a specific amount of time before they would be visible. The drives were mapped to a DFS namespace and it was uncertain whether people were just hitting the secondary site before the files were able to replicate or they weren’t appearing for another reason. The issue would also not consistently happen. Sometimes the files would appear immediately, sometimes it would take up to an hour.
Solution
The first step was to check the network drive from the direct server share name opposed to the DFS namespace. The files were visible when accessing them this way and not when using the DFS namespace.
We found the issue had to do with the cache time for Folders in Windows 7. You can read more about SMB2 Client Redirection Here
Once we modified the following registry, the issue was resolved. The following changes the Cache Lifetime for the folder so the client computer will never “assume” there are no changes in the folder share.
This registry key gets updated on all the CLIENT computers. In our case, all of our Master Images were updated with this change.
*Edit* Create this dword if it does not exist!
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters]
“DirectoryCacheLifetime”=dword:00000000
Hope this helps!
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