Re: Windows 10 issues with mapping drives to IFS

There are still a lot of inconsistent behaviors and we haven't
pinpointed whether it is the user, computer, server.

We do know that drives do get mapped to the Windows server based
shares with no problem. We have recently upgraded from 7.1 to 7.3 a few
weeks ago. That's when the issues seem to pop up, but still unsure of
that is the issue.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar with their IBM i and
Windows 10 desktops?

-JA-

--
Jason Aleski / IT Specialist

I don't recall all of the details, but for us, going to 7.3 affected
Windows 7 on up.

The following paragraphs are an explanation from our system admin as to the
results of his research. We did some workarounds, that I can't find right
now, one of them being a test on my registry. I do know that I don't use
drive letter shares to the IFS anymore as one workaround. I use network
shortcuts.

IBM changed protocol for NetServer from SMB1 to SMB2 when upgraded to IBM i
7.3.

When you are running SMB2 Windows File Explorer will refresh the list of
files shown multiple times per second. This is a violation of SMB
protocol. Microsoft admits this but currently has no plans to change this.

Microsoft has done this in the past and have issued a hotfix. They have no
plans at this time to issue a hotfix for this occurrence.

Due to serious security issues IBM is strongly discouraging you from
configuring back to SMB1.

There is a registry hack to reduce the refresh rate. Or you can stop using
Windows File Explorer. For example, looking at a mapped drive from a DOS
prompt does not have this issue. Having a file open from a share (like
Excel, PDF, etc) does not have this issue. Just the list of files shown in
Windows File Explorer.

So far the Denial of service attack only causes issues with the windows
file explorer sessions. We've not noticed other performance implications
(YMMV).

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=nas8N1021348

IBM would like more people to report this issue to them, and to Microsoft,
to put the pressure on Microsoft to fix this.