I use Symlinks extensively on my file server to prevent duplication of directories and files. I've enabled remote evaluation of Symlinks by using fsutil behavior set SymlinkEvaluation L2L:1 R2R:1 L2R:1 R2L:1. However, now I'm getting a "The device is not ready" error when I browse the network share from a remote system.
The particular share I'm accessing is hosted on the D: drive and the Symlink on the host points to a directory created on the E: drive using mklink /D D:\Directory\Link E:\Directory since Junctions do not work across drives.
Is there anyway to "hide" the symlink completely to the client so that I don't have to configure every client accessing this share to follow symlinks? On the server, I have no problems navigating between folders/links.
From Kaspersky:
Beyond that, I've seen this issue when using an external drive as the target of the link, but have yet to determine why.
You might consider using DFS as an alternative, although I personally don't like that it hides the true location of the files. Makes troubleshooting a real pain. Depending on the layout of the drive E, you might also consider using a mount point and see what happens.