Just a quick note about error 0x80070002 if you’re using server 2012 when trying to access a DFS share.  My clients configuration is currently this, we’re working through a few “quirks” that have cropped up when rolling this out.  For the most part things have gone well but if you can’t access your shares you’re in trouble.  It wasn’t every client either, just one in particular and I didn’t want this to spread.  I also saw some slow downs on a few other clients so maybe this issue was going to creep.  Not good!

So, the long and short of it is this:

Their server setup was – 2 Windows Server 2003 Servers doing DNS, AD (we moved DNS, AD and file shares to the new 2012 servers).  2 Windows Server 2012 servers now doing DNS, AD, DFSr and file sharing.

DFS setup, you could access them this way:

\\domain\dfsfolder\sharedfolders

\\server1\dfsfolder\sharedfolders

\\server2\dfsfolder\sharedfolders

So for their purposes one server was at location A and the other at location B.  This allowed them to have the same “shared drives” at each location.  You simply adjust the logon script for said user at location A or B to point to their locations local server and DFS shared folder.

One particular client was getting this error though: “Windows cannont access \\server1\dfsfolder\sharedfolder”  Error code: 0x80004005 Unspecified error.

What I figured out (and this must be some kind of DNS error / issue because we’re no longer using WINS) is you have to use the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) for this to work.

So try:

\\server1.yourdomain.local\dfsfolder\sharedfolders

It should come right up!  I had at one point 4 DNS servers (the 2 server 2003 and 2 server 2012’s) and we’re migrating to only 2 and decommissioning the server 2003 servers.  The 2003 server DO in fact do WINS.  I suspect, depending on who you got your answer from when you tried looking for \\server1\…you’d get a different answer, you wouldn’t get the answer that makes this magic work from the server 2012 servers unless you use the FQDN because we’re not using WINS.  It’s definitely a “name resolution” issue.  I haven’t figured it out fully yet and I don’t have the time to really dig into it but that’s the “fix”.  Use an FQDN to access the share ;-)