Our customer has a mapped network drive on his Windows 7 SP1 x86 Clients that point to a resource on a Windows 2008 SP2 server. This mapped network drive sometimes goes offline in the LAN without any reason. Sometimes, the files are accessible even when Windows 7 shows the resource as offline, sometimes the users are getting error messages that the resource is not available. - The problem can appear several times a day, and then never for a week or so. - There are never 1004 or 1005 Events logged on the clients when this happens. However, when the clients connect through a real slow link, these events are logged as expected. - The problem only appears at the Windows 7 SP1 clients. The majority of all clients are Windows XP SP3 and are not affected by this problem. - The problem only appears to DFS mapping to this resource. For testing purposes, we re-enabled a direct mapping to the server share to the same resource. This mapped drive never goes offline. - The "auto-disconnect" feature on the 2008 server is disabled (never disconnect automatically). - The DFS is domain based, Windows 2000 mode. There are still 2003 DC's in the domain, so this setting can not be changed. - The problem appears on different client systems, and the BIOS and NIC drivers are updated to the latest versions. - Hotfix 983620 seems to be already integrated in Windows 7 SP1. Have considered to configure the GPO settings computer - network - offline files - "non-default server disconnect actions" and "action on server disconnect". But according the help information, these settings are only for Windows server 2003 or earlier. Any advice? Thank you all in advance for your help. Franz

Hi, Can you ping the remote DFS name when the issue occurs? Also, try the following fix. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2705233Juke Chou TechNet Community Support

Thank you for your support. - Unfortunately, Hotfix 2705233 didn't solve the problem. - What do you mean with "ping remote dfs name"? It's a domain DFS without a A Record registered in DNS. And the server that is hosting the DFS Share is always reachable, the drive that is mapped directly to the server share for testing purposes never goes offline. Best regards, Franz

Hi, When you click Check Status in the DFS tab, what is the status? Okay or unreachable? If you can directly map the Drive, and never have the same problem, I think this is a DFS server side issue. Maybe you could try to post the thread at http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverfiles/threads for help.Juke Chou TechNet Community Support

Hi - Will try to check the DFS status when the problem arise the next time. - I don't think that it's a server issue. The customer has 150 XP Clients and about 10 Windows 7 Clients. The XP Clients have never that problem. best regards, Franz

- When the problem exists, the DFS Status is OK, despite the resource is displays with a red cross in Windows explorer. - Have upgraded the fileserver from 2008 to 2008 R2 SP1, but that hasn't changed anything.

Try this hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2705233 "You cannot access offline files that were configured in a DFS namespace on a Windows 7-based client computer"

Already done. Doesn't help. See post 3 of this thread