SYMPTOMS
When you work with a Distributed file system (Dfs) shared folder, you may receive "Path Not Found" error messages, or you may see an empty folder. For example, this might occur when you:
- Try to open a file in a Dfs shared folder.
- Try to find a file in a Dfs shared folder.
CAUSE
This symptom occurs if the Dfs link portion of the path contains more than one long path element, and at least one long path element is referred to by using the short (8.3) path-name equivalent. A path element is any portion of a network path between a pair of backslash (\) characters. In the following example,
LongLinkName and
Folder are long path elements, and
LinkName and
Subdir are short elements:
\\DfsServer\DfsRoot\LinkName\LongLinkName\LongLinkNamex\Folder\Subdir
For example, if you map a drive to the "\\
DfsServer\
DfsRoot\
LinkName\
LongLinkName" path, the following commands would yield an empty folder listing because the
LongLinkName portion of the path would always be used as a long file name:
Z:\> cd LONGLI~1
Z:LONGLI~1> dir
A Dfs link (or link path) is that part of a Dfs path that lies below the Dfs root and forms a connection to one or more shared folders or another Dfs root. The Dfs server component can handle link paths that contain path elements that are either all long, all short, but not mixed.