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I have a NAS that I'd like to mount over NFS. It works great on my Mac, but I cannot figure out how to mount this device on Windows 8.

I've searched a bit online, but all the articles seem to apply to Windows 7 and involve the mount command which doesn't seem to be part of Windows 8. What's the command to do this?

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7 Answers 7

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To connect to an NFS share, you need to make sure you have the NFS client installed. This component is a part of the Services for Unix component. Go into the control panel, Programs and Features, then Turn Windows features on or off. Make sure Services for Unix-based Applications (DEPRECATED) is checked, and click OK. Be advised that typically only Ultimate and Enterprise versions of Windows typically have this component available.

This will install the MS NFS client and (AFAIK) the mount command. I'm not at work so I can't verify exactly. If I remember I'll update Monday.

If your NAS can enable CIFS or SAMBA style shares, I would use that instead.

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  • 2
    Hmm I don't have Services for Unix-based Applications in the list. I'm running Windows 8 Professional. Dec 29, 2012 at 2:00
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    From what I can tell, SUA was available in the Windows 8 Beta but removed in the official release. Does this mean Windows 8 flat out has no NFS support? Dec 29, 2012 at 2:04
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    @Mike Looking here: blogs.msdn.com/b/sfu/archive/2012/08/01/… I see in the comments that it's only available in Win 8 Enterprise.
    – Bacon Bits
    Dec 29, 2012 at 2:22
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    My NAS does support SMB, however it's super buggy and I kept on losing files because the ACLs would get corrupted somehow and then no account (not even root) could read the file. I lost gigs of stuff due to that, and since it's a backup device I need to be able to trust it.. I'll look into third party NFS drivers. Dec 29, 2012 at 2:33
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    @rjt Supported clients are better than deprecated clients.
    – Bacon Bits
    Aug 4, 2016 at 19:58
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In Windows 8 (8.1 Enterprise for me here)...

There are two parts... First installing the client and second mounting the drive...

Installing the client

  1. Go to Control Panel → Programs → Programs and Features
  2. Select: Turn Windows features on or off" from the left hand navigation.
  3. Scroll down to "Services for NFS" and click the "plus" on the left
  4. Check "Client for NFS"
  5. Select "Ok"
  6. Windows should install the client. Once the client package is install you will have the "mount" command available.

Mounting the export

This assumes the following:

  • You know and can ping the hostname of the machine with the NFS exports
  • The name of the exported filesystem ( eg. /export, /home/users, /some/cool/file/path )
  • The file systems are properly exported and accessible

    1. Open a command prompt. ( Win+ R, enter "cmd" and press OK )
    2. Type:

      mount \\{machinename}\{filesystem} {driveletter}
      

    Examples:

    mount \\filehost\home\users H:
    mount \\server1234\long\term\file\storage S:
    mount \\nas324\exports E:
    

...and that's the basics.

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    I was able to mount the drive by right clicking on the device and selecting a mount option
    – dan1111
    Jun 6, 2015 at 7:37
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driver: http://www.citi.umich.edu/projects/nfsv4/windows/

On its NFSv4 project website, the University of Michigan's Center for Information Technology Integration (CITI) has announced that, after 18 months of development and since the start of September, source code for its Windows driver for distributed file system NFSv4.1 has been available from a Git repository. According to the release notes, compilation requires the Windows Driver Development Kit (WinDDK 6000 or later) and installation of the compiled driver requires a Microsoft test certificate. The included test scripts require a Cygwin environment including the gcc-core, make, sunrpc and time packages.

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Services for Network File System (NFS) feature is available only in the Windows 8 Enterprise edition. This feature is not available in Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro editions. Users when upgrading from Windows 7 Ultimate or Windows 7 Enterprise edition to Windows 8 Pro edition can no longer use Services for NFS feature.

In order to continue to use Services for NFS feature in Windows 8 client, Windows 7 users will have to upgrade to Windows 8 Enterprise edition.

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2769923

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Unless you have Windows 8 Enterprise, you won't be able to accomplish this without 3rd party apps.

I was able to NFS drives mounted in Windows 8 using NekoDrive. You will also need to install the Dokan library.

You can then set up the application to auto-mount the drive.

http://code.google.com/p/nekodrive/

http://web.archive.org/web/20150222074745/http://dokan-dev.net/en/download/

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    Not compatible with Windows 8.
    – Zenexer
    Feb 26, 2014 at 2:02
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Installing the client

Go to Control Panel → Programs → Programs and Features
Select: Turn Windows features on or off" from the left hand navigation.
Scroll down to "Services for NFS" and click the "plus" on the left
Check "Client for NFS"
Select "Ok"
Windows should install the client. Once the client package is install you will have the "mount" command available.

mount \192.168.3.5\home\slavy\data L:

WORKING!!! I use client Win 8.1 Ult and server Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server

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On my Windows 10 Pro install NFS is available in Turn Windows Features On and Off under Services for NFS:

Services for NFS in Windows Features

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