We have a file server that is 2008R2 STD, it is a member server in a 2008 AD. I need to relocate some of the files and directories and would like to do it behind the scenes more or less without impacting the users. (Reason for this is that some of the files, due to recent software changes, HAVE to be located locally on one of the workstations, but they can be accessed by other applications remotely.)

So symbolic links seem the panacea here, I moved a directory to another network share in the same domain (Windows 7 professional), created a symlink to it in the location it used to be in, named it the same thing, and to the local user it seems almost transparent. I.E. When logged into the desktop of the file server, I can go to the directory, open the link, it leaps to the other share as if it were local, exactly what would be expected.

Then I tried it from another client computer (Windows 7 professional as well), went through the normal provisioning of R2R and L2R with fsutil... No joy.

What I am getting is an access denied "Logon failure: Unknown username or bad password." using the same account that I log on locally to the file server with (Which happens to be the domain admin)

So I cannot believe it is telling the truth, or... I assume it is not passing the credentials I am connecting to the first share all the way through the symlink.

The end result is I want users on the domain to browser to share A, inside share A is a mixture of directories/files that reside there, and symlinks to directories/files on the second machine over the network in the same domain.

Possible? Or am I misunderstanding how the symlink should work?