I’ve had to do this a few times over the last couple of years when I have recovered our DCs for DR testing. It seems to be needed every time and I agree that the part of the article you mention is confusing. Despite that, I’ve followed the article the best I could and I’ve got the problem resolved each time. I had to test recovery again last month and I found this article, which may be easier to follow:
http://jackstromberg.com/2014/07/sysvol-and-group-policy-out-of-sync-on-server-2012-r2-dcs-using-dfsr/ This also reminded me that I had to install the DFS tools on every DC so that I would have the DFSR utility. (You’ll notice in the article that this guy says he didn’t bother with it and it seemed okay, but he’s in a test lab so I wouldn’t take a chance.) Next time I do this I’m going to document the exact steps as I go along. *From:* listsad...@lists.myitforum.com [mailto: listsad...@lists.myitforum.com] *On Behalf Of *Webster *Sent:* Wednesday, November 16, 2016 7:02 PM *To:* NT Issues (ntsysadm@lists.myitforum.com) <ntsysadm@lists.myitforum.com > *Subject:* [NTSysADM] How to force an authoritative and non-authoritative synchronization for DFSR-replicated SYSVOL (like "D4/D2" for FRS) Anyone ever had to use this KB to fix SYSVOL? https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2218556 Unfortunately, the two DCs are Server 2008 so they can't call Microsoft for support. I was looking at the section *How to perform an authoritative synchronization of DFSR-replicated SYSVOL (like "D4" for FRS) **and Steps 4 and 10 confuse me. Those steps say to start the DFSR service but there are no previous instructions that say to stop the service. On one of the broken DCs, there is no DFSR service that shows in services.msc.* *Any advice on using that KB would be appreciated.* Thanks Webster
