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Configuration files can't be exported to a DFS share through the Internet Services Manager in IIS 7.0 and 7.5

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This article helps you resolve the problem where configuration files can't be exported to a DFS share through the Internet Services Manager.

Original product version:   Internet Information Services 7.0, 7.5
Original KB number:   2511835

Symptoms

When configuring shared configuration in Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0 or 7.5, you must export the configuration from one server and store it in a location that all of the IIS servers can access. If that share is hosted on a domain-based Distributed File System (DFS) namespace, the export will fail with the following error:

Cannot write to the specified path. Make sure that the path and credentials are valid.

Cause

When validating the target share and determining its properties, the Internet Services Manager calls the NetShareGetInfo function. This function does not support DFS.

Resolution

To work around this problem, you can export the configuration files to a local path, then manually copy them to the DFS share.

  1. Open IIS Manager.
  2. In the tree view, select the server connection for which you want to set up configuration redirection.
  3. Double-click Shared Configuration.
  4. In the Actions pane, select Export Configuration...
  5. In the Export configuration dialog box, specify a local path (such as c:\temp) and provide a password to encrypt the exported files with.
  6. Select OK.
  7. Copy the exported files to the DFS share.

The rest of the configuration is the same as the normal shared configuration setup procedure. A detailed description of this procedure can be found at Shared Configuration.

More information

This problem does not happen when using a stand-alone namespace. For more information, see NetShareGetInfo function.