Offline Files

re: Offline Files

broonie27 — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 03:19:40 GMT

There have been several questions on this blog regarding excel and word and the tmp files they create causing syncing errors yet none have been aswered. Come on MS give us an answer as I have the same problem but it's with a .pst file. And before you say anything, yes I am closing Outlook before I sync.

re: Offline Files

tromberg — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:27:39 GMT

This is by far the most buggy feature I have encountered in Vista so far.

Among the problems:

- Drives stubbornly refuse to reconnect. Instead Vista maintains the "offline ghost". Must connect using alias network name to get to the actual drive.

- Sync center will refuse to resolve conflict when choosing "keep local". Besides being a usability desaster.

- Drive will go sporadically offline when under load (e.g. when you copy a large file to it, other applications will suddenly see the offline version or nothing. infuriating when you try reading a pdf.)

- many applications are not able to work with offline files. had this problem with Subversion client and Latex.

some of these issues are currently sent as a support request to the Chinese support teams, but so far I'm not sure they have any clue, they just keep telling me to boot in clean mode (doesn't help). It just seems clear to me this is still very buggy.

--> Stay away from offline files, use SyncToy

conexiva.net » C??mo hacer un reinicio (reset) de la base de datos de los Archivos Sin Conexi??n (Offline Files) en Vista

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:53:47 GMT

Pingback from conexiva.net » C??mo hacer un reinicio (reset) de la base de datos de los Archivos Sin Conexi??n (Offline Files) en Vista

re: Offline Files

Blutarsky — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:33:33 GMT

Is anybody reading our comments?

Here's another question: it looks like the old XP limitation about the architecture constrain of offline files at login is still there. When your CSC folder starts growing, the time the computer takes to becom responsive at login, increases: the disk led indicator flashes continuosly, the computer is slow, and you would like to throw your portable out of the window.

We were told that things would ahve changed in Vista, but to me is exactly as before.

Why is that?

re: Offline Files

agotay — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:38:40 GMT

We have Corporate laptops machines with Vista Enterprice edition and we use Offline Files. All laptops are in the domain and have a GPO to enable and encypt the offline files. After the SP1, now we receive the "Access Denied Error" at all Vista laptops, no issues to other Windows versions.

Here are some of the workarounds we all ready did without luck;

1.Change from the OU one of the laptops, disable the Offline Files, reboot, and enable offline files againg.

2.Change the security for the \\fileservername\share\userfolder folder to Everyone Full Control.

3.Enable the opportunistic locking at the server.

4.Reset and Delete the "C:\Windows\CSC" folder

5.On laptop we add the registry key; [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\MRXSmb\Parameters] "OplocksDisabled"=dword:00000000

6.On the File Server we add the registry key; [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters] "EnableOplocks"=dword:00000001

7.Check for changes on the current GPO and not changes have been made after March 2008.

8.Remove and move againg the laptop to the OU an verified that they receive the GPO policies from the domain and they apply just fine. GPO Details are;

List of applicable Group Policy objects:

-OS Settings - Screen Saver Timeout

-Software Settings - Corporate Office 2007 Default Doc Extension

-Software Settings - Corporate Blocked Content

-Software Settings - Global IE Settings

-OS Settings - CA Certificate Enrollment

Default Domain Policy

-Desktop Settings-SDC Laptop Users Screensaver settings

-Desktop Settings - Folder Redirection and Std. Mappings

-IT Homepage.

9.At http://support.microsoft.com/kb/935663 mentions to install a hotfix but the files versions that mentions (Kernel32.dll and Cscsvc.dll) are more new on the laptop now than the ones the KB says.

10.After the sync we receive the access denied error no matter on were OU is in the laptop.

Without Offline Files enable the users can successfully use their data via UNC or Mappings. They can change, rename, deleting, etc... Then, after enabling the offline files again and when doing the sync we receive the access denied error again on must of the files.

re: Offline Files

eric_hansen@hotmail.com — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:52:18 GMT

I successfully encrypted my offline files. Then I decided to unencrypt them. I have Vista Ultimate sp1. The unencrypt process never ends, the little green progress bar keeps running...but when I look at the offine files, the "encrypted" field says "no". So, are there still some encrypted somewhere, does it get hung up or what? I've let this run for 48 hours, rebooted, etc., same result.

re: Offline Files

nuukem — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:56:27 GMT

I'm having a strange problem. Several searches haven't turned up a solution.

The Offline Files sync seems to be working ok, but when I go to "Sync Center" on Laptop A, then double click on "Offline Files" under Folders, there is nothing listed in the Sync Partnership Details section. On Laptop B, when I go to the Sync Partnership Details section I see my network server and share that is setup for offline files.

The problem with not seeing anything listed in the Sync Partnership Details section is that I can't "Schedule" the sync to happen on an action or at a certain time. Clicking the "Schedule" button doesn't list anything in that window.

On Laptop A I've tried unchecking "Always Available Offline" and rechecking it, but that hasn't helped.

Does anyone know how to resolve this?

Thank you,

~ Phil

re: Offline Files

Socrates — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:40:03 GMT

The improvements are great, however one of my major frustrations with Offline Files under Vista that none of the management tools like CscCmd work anymore.

For example, under WinXP, if a user's home share move to a new UNC, I could rehome cache without having to sync, unpin, pin, resync all the files in the cache. So in a scenario where some infrastructure changed, I could put this change in a logon script and fix the problem seamlessly and efficiently for all my users.

So offline files under Vista is currently a world of pain for me as file servers are being replaced and in same cases, user accounts renamed during a major infrastrucutre consolidation.

re: Offline Files

Blutarsky — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 12:16:24 GMT

Hi there, one question:

When making available a folder, all it's contents are made available offline, including subfolders.

How can you uncheck some subfolders from being avaliable offline?

I mean basically I need to have ALL folder contents and subfolders, available. There are some little exceptions....

Any hint?

re: Offline Files

cazulp — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:06:40 GMT

Correction to my previous comment. If Vista works in a similar fashion to XP, then I think what I am seeing in the CSC are the control files in sub-folder V2.0.6, not the files themselves hence the properties will not show the details I want. If I am correct, is there any way to see the actual files and which folder will they be in, eg Namespace or Temp ?.

re: Offline Files

cazulp — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:50:32 GMT

I find Offline Files under Vista more problematic than under XP. My issue at the moment is that I have encrypted Offline Files and want to see the certificate that was used to do this. Under XP, I was able to see the files in the CSC and check the details under properties to get this information. Under Vista, I have to go through hoops to see the files and then the details button is greyed out giving the appearance that the files are NOT encrypted. Can anyone help.

re: Offline Files

balintn — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:23:48 GMT

I love the idea of offline files, but now I'm thinking about throwing it all out, and fall back to file copying.

I have a Vista machine, used offline files for a long while, but now it just does not sync. When the same happened in XP, you just had to hit "Sync" a few times, and things started to work. Not in Vista. It says it is not connected (so it can't sync). In the meantime, I can ping the file server, from the file server I can remote desktop to the client. I tried switching the firewall off on both machines, did not change anything.

So, I think I'll wait patiently for a day or two. I had enough trying to solve the problem. If the solution comes to me by a miracle, I'll use it. Otherwise, I'll just throw it out, or just switch back to XP.

re: Offline Files

terry.sposato — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:25:05 GMT

I have a weird problem using Vista with Offline Files on a share running Win2K3 Server. Our current setup with Active Directory has a U:\ mapped to a share called \\server\users\username.here. Now this user is obviously given access to the folder through AD.

When I am testing Offline Files in Vista, I change the Location of the Documents folder to point to U:\. This all works fine, and I am available to mark this folder as make available offline successfully and the syncing etc. all works fine. However, my problem occurs that the users directory under \\server\users\username.here get's changed to \\server\users\Documents. So at the moment I have 2 Vista machines with offline files being setup in the same way, both called Documents in the same share? I am not even sure how this is possible to have 2 folders named the same under the same root folder?

I am able to supply screenshots and samples of how they are setup etc. for someone from Microsoft to look at. Alternatively I can be contacted at terry.sposato (at) reynolds (dot) com (dot) au.

I am very puzzled by this as the permissions on such directories look fine as well and I am not even sure where to start looking. Now obviously I could of pointed the Documents to redirect to \\server\users\username.here\Sync or any other subfolder under the root U:\ but should I have to? Why would it change the name?

Thanks in advance.

Terry

re: Offline Files

David Wilson — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:56:22 GMT

We just upgraded a few users to Office 2007. Two are on Vista, and one seems to be experiencing a problem with the offline files.

On our machines, I disable offline files because it won't let my users save to a network drive if they open Outlook attached files.

On the one Vista Laptop, this fix worked until we loaded SP1 - then the problem came back, but according to Control Panel, offline files are still disabled. Thoughts? My boss is not happy she can't save files directly out of e-mail to the netork.

DNW

re: Offline Files

WesWilkey — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:45:38 GMT

I am having a problem with a share which will not come back online. Here's the environment

Single server environment

W2K3 SP2 as AD domain controler

Group Policy redirect of Documents folder to server share

Vista Ultimate client

What I can so far reproduce, is that using my WIFI connection the server redirect folder comes online, the troubled share never comes online. If I boot on the wired network both are available. Since the WIFI connections are not established until during the login process, it the troubled share never appears. With a wired connection the server is "seen" before login, so the troubled share is there. If the connection drops (server reboots, move from wired to wireless without reboot, etc) the troubled share goes offline and never detects the server is there, even though all other shares to the server work.

When I open explore and look for the "Work Online" option, it isn't there. If I am online with this share, I can select "Work Offline" and then the "Work Online" appears and I can switch it back.

Strange, but can't find anything to fix this, short of rebooting on a wired network whenever I need to sync. Very frustrating.

Thanks,