Disabling site awareness for Windows Server 2003 or for Windows 2000 DFS in a Windows NT 4.0 domain (810418)

RESOLUTION

Windows Server 2003

Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To bypass the DFS site discovery process in Windows Server 2003, you must set a registry key. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dfs\Parameters

3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type DfsDisableSiteAwareness, and then press ENTER.
5. Double-click the DfsDisableSiteAwareness value, type 1 in the Value data field, and then click OK.
   
   Note Set this value to 0 (zero) to disable this functionality.
6. Quit Registry Editor.

Windows 2000

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To resolve this problem, Microsoft added new functionality to the DFS service in Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (SP4). To bypass the DFS Site discovery process in SP4, you can set a new registry key. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedt32 in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dfs

3. On the Edit menu, click Add Key, and then type Parameters for the key name. Leave the Class section blank.
4. Click OK.
5. Click to select Parameters.
6. On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then type DfsDisableSiteAwareness for the value name.
7. Choose REG_DWORD for the data type, and then click OK.
8. In the DWORD Editor window, type 1 in the Data box, and then click OK.
   
   Note Set this value to 1 to enable the new functionality. To disable the new functionality so that Windows 2000 returns to the default behavior of searching for Site Coverage, set this value to 0 (zero), or delete the DfsDisableSiteAwareness registry value.
9. Quit Registry Editor.