I recently had an issue where SYSVOL and NETLOGON shares missing on my newly promoted domain controller. It turns out the domain was in pretty bad shape so I had to fix domain controller replication, then proceed to figure out why my SYSVOL and NETLOGON shares were not appearing by default.
SYSVOL and NETLOGON Shares Missing on New DC Fix
After a bit of searching around I was able to figure out the reason why. This newly promoted domain controller was running on Server 2019 so I thought it was a bit odd that it was behaving this way. It turns out the fix works from 2012 R2 and newer.
With that being said lets go over the steps to resolve the missing Sysvol and Netlogon shares for your DC.
- Login to your Domain Controller that’s having the issue
- Open Regedit
- Browse to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters
- Set SysVolReady from 0 to 1
Once you’ve set the above registry key, the SYSVOL folder should be created so you can type in \\DC\Sysvol and it should work. However, I noticed that this specific registry key didn’t fix my NETLOGON folder so in order to fix that issue here is what I did.
- While logged in to my domain controller
- Navigate to C:\Windows\SYSVOL\domain
- Create a new folder and name it scripts
- Restart the netlogon service (or reboot the machine)
By now you the issue of your sysvol missing on new domain controller should be fixed as well as your netlogon shares missing on your server. This article is pretty short and sweet but if you’re still having issues with domain controller replication, I’ve created a video on Youtube that I’ll link here as well.
it is magic ! thanks.
Great help! I installed a new 2025 Server and was wondering where the NETLOGON and SYSVOL shares were. Did a complete reinstall with Server 2022 because I hoped it was a bug in Server 2025 but the shares were missing with Server 2022 as well. With this info I got the shares and with the description in the following link I got the synchronisation running: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/group-policy/force-authoritative-non-authoritative-synchronization
Outstanding, and just changing the SysvolReady variable fixed it immediately. Thank you so very, very much!!!
thanks alot pro you save my life
Thank you!
Thanks !
Thank you so much
Thank you!!!
thanks for the easy fix!
Great article, are you available for consulting services?
Amazing!!!
It works
Thanks
Thank you! So simple now 🙂
Thanks a million, this just solved the problem for us!
Thank you so much- it saved me after long hours of troubleshooting replication…..
Awesome.thanks a lot my problem has resolved following the same.
Good grief. That was the only thing that I needed. You have to be kidding me. All the other solutions out there were garbage. Excellent post my friend…..You get a GOLD star.
Hi Paul:
Many thanks for this article, I was quite surprised after joining a new 2019 DC to our network that the sysvol and netlogon shares were missing, and this procedure helped me get them back. But one thing I noticed is that the policies folder which should be in c:\windows\sysvol\sysvol\domain isn’t there, and gpupdate fails immediately as it references folders which should be in the non-existent policy folder. Any ideas on how to recreate that too? 🙂
Cheers!
Mat
HI same here,
Did you solve it ?
We had this issue, In the end we copied the contents of the SYSVOL folder from a backup of the old DC onto the new DC. Needed to open up Group Policy and click on each Policy for it to reset its permissions. Worked fine after this.
Cheers MATTB This fixed it for me as well.
Well written and easy to follow directions! Thank you for providing this information. Fixed my issue replacing an old 2008 domain.
Such a simple, easy and quick fix. Awesome. I’ve already spent hours on this and would have lost at least several more hours of my life if you hadn’t posted this. Thank you.
Perfect. So glad I came across your solution. Many others stop at the regedit fix. Adding the script folder resolved the net logon share issue too.
What a great post! This helped me get my new 2022 DC working as expected. – Thank you!
Thanks, this saved my bacon.
Thank you for this!!
Like Gus I’ve been all over the Internet, including several useless MS forums and articles to resolve this issue. This was perfect – concise and exactly what I needed. Thanks Paul!
Lifesaver! Thank you!. Spent hours going thru MS docs about this missing Sysvol and Netlogon shared folders.
Even remove the roles quite some times.
Cheers!
good to know…
had a replication issue that took too long to resolve.