Microsoft KB Archive/321022

= Problems When You Work with a Distributed File System Shared Folder =

Article ID: 321022

Article Last Modified on 2/28/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition

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This article was previously published under Q321022



SYMPTOMS
When you work with a Distributed file system (Dfs) shared folder, you may receive &quot;Path Not Found&quot; 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,  and   are long path elements, and   and   are short elements:

\\ \ \ \ \ \ \

For example, if you map a drive to the &quot;\\ \ \ \ &quot; path, the following commands would yield an empty folder listing because the  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.



RESOLUTION
To work around this problem, use either of the following methods:
 * Always use long path names when you work with shared folders that are under Dfs links that contain long path elements.
 * Use short path elements only when you create Dfs links. Use this method if you cannot configure your programs to use long path names.



STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

Keywords: kbbug kbenv kberrmsg kbnofix kbwin2000presp4fix KB321022

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