The first task that you will complete setting up any WIndows Server 2008 is to set up a Server Role. To do so, open Server Manager and click on Add Roles. At the Add Roles Wizard, click on the Next button to show a list of roles to add. Check the box for File Services and click on the Next button. Click on Next again. At the Select Role Services screen, you’ll see that File Server is checked. This will install the SMB/CIFS services. You’ll also see Distributed File System. Check the box for Distributed File System and the then check the boxes for DFS Namespaces if you want to setup shared folders that spread across multiple servers. You can enable DFS Replication if you need to configure name spaces that get synchronized between multiple servers. When you’re comfortable that you’ve enabled the services required, click on Next.
At the Create a DFS Namespace screen, you can go ahead and create your first namespace. To do so, provide a name for the namespace and click on Next. At the Namespace Type screen, click on Domain-based namespace (or if you will be using only the one server go ahead and click on Stand-alone namespace). Note the Namespace preview. This is the path that you will use to connect to the DFS namespace from client systems.
Click Next and then at the Namespace Configuration screen, click on Add and then click on Browse to select a folder to be shared. If you do not yet have a shared folder then click on New Shared Folder. At the Create Share screen, provide the path and the permissions for the folder as you would most shares. If you already have existing shares then select the share which will be used to provide the DFS namespace and click on OK.
Back at the Add folder to Namespace screen, verify the information appears correct and click on OK. Now you’ll be back at the Namespace Configuration screen. Here, you’ll see the namespace that is presented to users and below it you will see the share point that you created, which will appear to users as a subfolder of the namespace. Provided that you have DFS installed on a second server you can then add a shared directory from that server as yet another subfolder of the namespace. Otherwise, click on the Next button, then verify the settings and click Install. When the installation is complete, click Close.
From Administrative Tools, click on DFS Management. Here, you can use the wizard to publish namespaces to multiple servers for replication, configure the backup services for DFS and perform a variety of other wizardly types of tasks. But more importantly, you can click on Namespaces and configure additional shared folders to be added to the namespace and additional servers.