We have a new Windows 2008 R2 server, which hosts user home directories. We are using symbolic folder links (created using mklink) for a link called 'Dormant' in each users home folder, which redirects to another folder each user has on a volume mounted locally on the server via iSCSI. The redirected folder share is hidden, and the exact syntax of the command I'm using is;
mklink /D Dormant \\server1\dormant$\<username>
This works fine, usually, but we're noticing some occasions when for unknown reasons, a user will get the following error when they click on the link;
The symbolic link cannot be followed because its type is disabled
Now, before everyone chips in, I can confirm the following;
All clients using this feature are Windows 7
We have the group policy setting enabled that allows all local to remote symbolc links on the client
Running the 'fsutil behavior query symlinkevaluation' on the client confirms that all local to remote (and local to local) symlinks are enabled.
As administrator, I can follow all the links without problem, even when the user gets the error. I've triple checked all permissions, and everything is fine. There are no errors logged in Event Viewer. If the client logs off and on again (or reboots), 9 times out of 10 the link will work again, bur randomly it will stop with the error.
We've seen this on a few clients now as we migrate people to the new platform, but it's not consistent, and is difficult to pin down. If we give the users the direct share path to the 'Dormant' folder, they can read/write to it fine, just occasionally not via the symlink.
I'm investigating, but it's an odd one.