Force DFS Replication/Force DFSR Members to Replicate on windows server 2008 and 2012

Force sysvol replication on windows server 2008/2012, FRS has been replaced by DFSR Replication engine for replicating the SYSVOL folders from Windows Server 2008 & wundows server 2012 and file replication performance has been improved with many new features, Microsoft manage to fix most of the bottlenecks, improved command line support, Content Freshness, handling unexpected shutdowns and reporting

Learn more on Force FRS Replication on windows 2000/2003, from my old article

There are many ways to replicate DFSR folders, will start with DFS Management

DFS Management tool includes the ability to force the replication to occur immediately by overriding the replication schedule

Open DFS Management Tool

On console tree – under the Replication node

Select the appropriate replication group

Select Connections tab

Right-click the member you want to use to replicate

And then click Replicate Now

Forcing DFSR replication through Dfsrdiag

You can also force the replication using Dfsrdiag SyncNow command

For Sysvol folder on Domain Controller

Run this from one Domain Controller and specify the other Domain Controllers in the partner parameter

Dfsrdiag syncnow /rgname:”domain system volume” /partner:dc2 /time:1 /verbose

For other folders on DFSR Server

Dfsrdiag SyncNow /partner:dfsserver2 /rgname:domainname\app\folder1 /member:dfsserver1 /time:5

Force the replication using the Dfsrdiag PollAD command, DFSR server will check with Active Directory for replication changes and same has been replicated, need this to be run from destination DFSR server

c:\Dfsrdiag PollAD

Understand more about SYSVOL folder structure

General SYSVOL troubleshooting

How SYSVOL replication works

Force FRS Replication on windows 2000/2003