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bwllc

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Share Creation Limit Windows 2003

Ok here is a question just to make sure we don't come across any problems later...  is there a limit on the amount of shares that can be created on a Windows 2003 Enterprise Server?

Thanks,

bw
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Microtech
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No limitations but why you want to create as many as shares ?
Avatar of Barthax
There is no exact limit, as per MS:

"Maximum number of shared folders on a server    Varies. The number of shares on a server affects server boot time. On a server with typical hardware and thousands of shares, boot time can be delayed by minutes. Exact delays depend on server hardware.

Shared folder information is stored in the system hive of the registry. For systems with less than 800 MB of RAM, the System hive can be as large as one-quarter of the physical memory. For systems with more than 800 MB of RAM, the maximum size of the System hive is 200 MB. If the system hive exceeds this limit, the server cannot mount the registry at startup and Windows Server 2003 cannot start."

Quoted from:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/WindowsServ/2003/all/deployguide/en-us/sdccc_fsv_duel.asp
The number of shares is virtually unlimited, it's only limitation is the number of connections to these your server can hold, so how much system resources (CPU and Memory) are available. The performance for the connections will drop is if the number of processes connected to them rises. This of course already happens if you have a low number of shares but to many connections.