Hi,
We are running a 2-site domain (main and DR). In each site we have 2 Domain Controllers.
Main - DC1 - namespace server (WS 2012)
Main - DC2 (WS 2012)
DR - DC3 - namespace server (WS 2008 R2)
DR - DC4 (WS 2008)
We use DFS-N for all network shares. We have around 60 client computers. All are at the main site.
Occasionally, some clients will have a problem with namespaces, which is affecting folder redirection. Typically, if a user logs in and gets errors about their redirected folders then they reboot and the problem goes away. I have run a bunch of dfsdiag commands on various machines and have observed the following
dfsdiag /testdcs - this works fine, no errors
dfsdiag /testsites - this works fine, no errors
dfsdiag /testdfsconfig - this only tests two DC's (one in each site; DC1 and DC3). The DC3 responds instantly - no errors. DC1 in the main site takes around 15-20 seconds to respond, eventually no errors. This delay is seen on all client computer (whether they have a problem with folder redirection or not). The only computer which returns both results instantly is DC1 - the slow responder.
This suggests to me it is a DNS or WINS issue. We have no WINS in our domain. None of the DC's have the DfsDnsConfig=1 registry key set.
The delay occurs when I use both the commands below...
dfsdiag /testdfsconfig /dfsroot:\\domain\files
dfsdiag /testdfsconfig /dfsroot:\\domain.local\files
...which suggests it might not be a WINS issue.
Will adding the registry key eliminate this delay? Is there anything else I should be looking at?