Windows Offline Files

[time]

I want to provide local copies of two or more directory trees for offline use on a laptop. Previously, I used a 3rd party product for this, but the vendor is long gone and I can't find the license.

I can see how to redirect a system folder such as My Documents to a single folder (and subfolders), but can't see how I can use this with multiple folders.

If I just use the 'Make Available Offline' option, the shortcut to offline files presents a view without any folder information, i.e. several directory levels are collapsed into one big list. This is useless - is there some secret way to persuade Windows to display in folder groupings?

Or can someone work out how to redirect to achieve the same thing?

 

[Mercutio]

I just spent some time screwing around with it between my notebook and a Windows Server. I see what you mean about the flat listing and I don't see a fix for it.

You might be able to do something with a batch file, though:

xcopy /h/i/c/k/e/r/y/d will replicate a whole file structure and only copy files that have changed. Windows Offline files has more useful sync management, but I've had issues at times with people making changes that were overwritten by Offline files anyway. Nothing's perfect.

 

[baksteentje]

If I just use the 'Make Available Offline' option, the shortcut to offline files presents a view without any folder information, i.e. several directory levels are collapsed into one big list. This is useless - is there some secret way to persuade Windows to display in folder groupings?

Maybe I don't quite understand your question, but for me Windows offline files displays the folder structure exactly the same as when online (connected to the server),
provided that you look in the same place as online.

In our office, we use Windows Offline files (on WinXp) for shared project folders on a network drive on the server (Win2003).
If I make for example N:\Projects\project1 available offline, I can access N:\Projects\project1 (and all subfolders) when I am not connected to the server.
So when offline, Windows Explorer displays the N:\-drive only containing the folders that were made available offline.

This had been working quite OK for us the last 5+ years, when the number of offline changes is not too high (OK when working with reasonably large Office documents, but not really suited for data storage for software models with lots of disk accesses).
The problem that arises when the offline data is too heavily used (when offline), is that Windows refused to synchronise changes (due to corruption of the offline folders cache). We have never lost any data, but in these cases, some tedious manual steps were necessary (to move the offline data to another location and manually "synchonise" with data on the server; after that the offline files-cache has to be cleared completely and then all offline folders have to be made available offline again).


I do not really understand what folder redirection has to do with this.

 

[Mercutio]

I think he's looking for a functionality that generally isn't there but was in his older product.

 

[time]

I initially resolved this by setting the root folder (but not subfolders) to be offline, then turning on just the subfolder structures that I needed (rinse and repeat etc).

However, it looks like I underestimated Windows. As long as you create a shortcut, it will happily 'fill in the blanks' when you access that shortcut offline, displaying intermediate folders that haven't been flagged, i.e. the branches you need are shown even though the leaves are missing.

baksteentje, I can't see the network drives in explorer when offline because they're mapped in a login script.

 

[ddrueding]

baksteentje, I can't see the network drives in explorer when offline because they're mapped in a login script.

That is your problem. They do work very well if the drive letter is there.

 

[Howell]

baksteentje, I can't see the network drives in explorer when offline because they're mapped in a login script.

So the NET USE persistent switch (/P) isn't working?

 

[time]

So, I now have a problem with offline files. A user is out of her office and it seems that files under one particular branch have disappeared. When I got her to look at the settings, 'disk space to use' was at 1.99GB (3%). It needs to be more like 40GB.

When she changed it to 100%, okayed it, and went back in to check, it had moved it back to 3%. I'm guessing this may be the root of the problem.

Anyone have any ideas how to salvage this over the phone? :???:

 

[time]

Anyone? The user will be traveling for two weeks, so I still need to come up with something.

<bump>

 

[Stereodude]

No idea here. I've never used Windows Offline Files.

 

[Bozo]

No idea here. I've never used Windows Offline Files.

Same here, sorry.

 

[sdbardwick]

Does this offer any insight? (2GB Limit in XP and W2K)

 

[ddrueding]

I've disabled offline files for everyone. I didn't find the tools or techniques to manage it satisfactory.

 

[time]

Does this offer any insight? (2GB Limit in XP and W2K)

Thanks for that. I love the line, "This behavior is by design."! :lol:

Unfortunately, it clarifies that I guessed wrong; this behavior is not related to my problem, I definitely set the folders up manually. So I guess it's just yet another example of Offline Files failing inexplicably and unexpectedly. Which of course is why I didn't want to use the damn thing in the first place. :boom:

Let this thread stand as a warning to anyone similarly tempted ...