DFS Namespace not visible Windows Server 2012

Question

If I try to browse to our namespace, let's say \\local.lan I don't see the namespaces. They should be like:

\\local.lan\

• department1
• department2
• department3

But if I try to browse through the directories I just see:

\\local.lan\netlogon

\\local.lan\sysvol

The department shares are invisible.

If I try to enter them while using the full path it works perfectly like:

\\local.lan\department1 \\local.lan\department2 \\local.lan\department3 

I want to give our users the ability to just browse through the directories. We have a paralell installation on windows 2008 with the exact same config and it seems to work perfectly over there. The difference is that on the Win2008 system the DFS system/dfs root is configured on a Domain Controller....

Answer 1

This was not designed to work that way.
\\domain.tld is not a DFS it is just a view of the domain. It probably works on the other installation because the DC hosts the DFS and You see the shares used for the DFS. I've done some testing and depending if a DC is hosting a DFS namespace I got different results. I just tried start -> run \\domain.tld on different servers / DC in same domain and I got different results. When I tried this directly from DC that was not a namespace server I saw only NETLOGON and SYSVOL

I think You should redesign Your DFS and and have Your users remember that link:
\\domain.tld\YOUR_DFS_NAMESPACE instead of \\domain.tld
You can nicely link folders there or build subfolders tree on a single dfs namespace.

and map \\domain.tld\YOUR_DFS_NAMESPACE through GPO preference.

the alternative is to add every DC as a namespace server and You will get what You are looking for however this is not how it was designed to work.