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How do I delete an orphaned share?
John Savill
January 8, 2000
1 Min Read
A. An orphaned share is one that the directory it shares has beendeleted. If you delete a directory in Explorer that is shared any shares willautomatically removed. If you delete by a different method, such as from thecommand prompt then the share will be left and it may result in messages in theSystem Event Log of the form:
The server service was unable to recreate the share NTFAQ because thedirectory D:tfaq files no longer exists.You can manually update the registry to remove these "rogue"shares.
Start the registry editor (regedt32.exe)
Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServiceslanmanserverShares
There is an entry for each share
Click here to view imageSelect the entry for the share you wish to delete and select Delete from the Edit menu.
Click Yes to the confirmation
If the share had special security set it will also have an entry under the Security sub-key so move to Security (under Shares), select the share value name and delete
If you type net share the share name will still be displayed until thelanmanserver service is restarted. If you manually restart it will also stop theservices, net logon, computer browser and Distributed File System.
Another method (if you have access) is to use Server Manager in NT 4.0,connect to the machine and orphaned shares are grayed out, you can then deletethem. Windows 2000 Computer Manager does not display orphaned shares in adifferent colour making this approach impossible in Windows 2K.
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