If you need to migrate your shares from one Windows server to another, the Microsoft documentation will give you the “proper” process (by way of File Server Resource Manager). This is a much quicker and dirtier method that I’ve used many times.

Perhaps you’re migrating your file server, or simply setting up another one; everyone at some point will need to migrate SMB shares and permissions. Luckily, it’s a relatively painless process:

Firstly if you haven’t already done so you should copy the data to the new server, keeping permissions and attributes intact

Steps:

• On the old server: open regedit and browse to: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Shares
• Export the key
• On the new server: check the same key and see if any shares already exist and need to be kept. If they do, export the key and keep it safe.
• Transfer the exported registry key to the new server and double-click to import it.
• (if you need to reinstate the original shares, re-import the new reg key over the top)
• Reboot the server and that’s it!

I told you it was easy!