An earlier article on using Windows Server disk quotas received a shocking number of readers. There are a lot more admins paying attention to these making-life-easier tasks than I expected, asking about disk quotas is one of those simple questions that many sysadmin interviewees somehow missed. I’ve always figured Microsoft should require one extra exam completion per year to maintain an MCSE certification. The extra test might actually reduce the number of “paper MCSE’s”, instead of the IT field having to deal with a constantly growing number of them. Although, none of my interviewers at my current employer knew that Microsoft certification transcripts can be verified online.

Getting back to disk quotas, some readers may be interested to know that it’s possible to backup and restore Windows disk quota settings. That linked article references Windows XP, but the same steps also apply to Windows Server 2000 and 2003. Refer to the Microsoft KB article for details; here’s my summary:

Open the quota tab on a disk where quota managment has been enabled.

Select the “Quota Entries…” button at the bottom.

From the Quota Manager, choose the Quota menu > Export > enter a file name and save the settings. Or, drag a quota setting or settings from the Quota Manager to a folder and they will be saved there automatically.

Import by choosing that option from the Quota menu and then navigate to the correct export file.

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