How to clear the conflict and deleted folder in DFS

Intro

• OS : Windows 2012R2, Windows 2016

Sometimes, in a Windows Server DFS environment, the conflict and deleted folder grows unexpectedly. When it happens we can also see that the ConflictAndDeletedManifest.xml file is corrupted and that his size begins to take some megabytes.

We can clear it in two commands line. Let's see how.

Commands

• Get the Replicated Folder ID :

 C:\Users\Administrator> WMIC.EXE /namespace:\\root\microsoftdfs path dfsrreplicatedfolderconfig get replicatedfolderguid,replicatedfoldername

• Launch the clean command, replace <RF GUID> with your Replication Folder Guid

 C:\Users\Administrator> WMIC.EXE /namespace:\\root\microsoftdfs path dfsrreplicatedfolderinfo where "replicatedfolderguid='<RF GUID>'" call cleanupconflictdirectory

That's it. It will take some times, but you will see the conflict and deleted folder size slowly decrease. In the end, the ConflictAndDeletedManifest.xml file will be recreated.

Source

• docs.microsoft.com