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[Solved] SYSVOL and NETLOGON Shares Missing on New DC

Last Updated by Paul Contreras

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

Sysvol Regedit missing sysvol and netlogon shares
 

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.

5/5 - (6 votes)

Paul Contreras

Hi, my name is Paul and I am a Sysadmin who enjoys working on various technologies from Microsoft, VMWare, Cisco and many others. Join me as I document my trials and tribulations of the daily grind of System Administration.

24 Comments

  12. 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.

  13. 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

    • 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.

  14. Well written and easy to follow directions! Thank you for providing this information. Fixed my issue replacing an old 2008 domain.

  15. 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.

  16. 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.

  17. What a great post! This helped me get my new 2022 DC working as expected. – Thank you!

  20. 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!

  21. 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!

  22. good to know…
    had a replication issue that took too long to resolve.

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