Home | Resource Guides | Tech Tips | Network Administration | Hardware | Certification

Tech Tips › Windows NT › Networking

Tech Tips / Windows NT / Networking

Find another location for your DHCP backup

DHCP is responsible for significantly easing our workload in managing IP addresses. The DHCP service does back up its database and files. However, it stores them in the Winnt\system32\DHCP\backup directory on the same partition that is running the DHCP service.

Obviously, when you back up this server, you get the backup copy as well, but for added peace of mind, you might want to change the backup location to another physical drive.

To change the location of that backup directory, follow these steps:

1. At the Run command, open up regedt32.
2. Once the registry editor is open, navigate to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\DHCP Server.
3. Double-click Parameters, then double-click Backup Database Path.
4. Change the first part of the line to indicate a different physical drive on the server, such as E:\System32\dhcp\backup. Don't forget to create the directory structure on that drive.

Now the information will be backed up to that different drive. This works in Windows 2000 as well.

Note: As always, we'll remind you that registry editing can be risky, so be sure you have a verified backup before making any changes.