We've not run into any app compatibility issues with it. The only files we make available offline are My Documents (and the related stuff like My Music) and the desktop. We use folder redirection for these so that users' files will automatically be backed up to a server. Because we want them to be able to access those files even during a network outage (or at home, in the case of laptop users), we also use offline files.
We used to have people's stuff stored in \\SomeServer\SomeShare<file:///\\SomeServer\SomeShare>. I realized what a bad idea that was, because "SomeServer" wasn't always going to be around. So over the Christmas holidays I switched to DFS and modified the GPO to point to \\OurDomain\dfs\whatever<file:///\\OurDomain\dfs\whatever> and pointed \\OurDomain\dfs\whatever<file:///\\OurDomain\dfs\whatever> to \\SomeServer\SomeShare<file:///\\SomeServer\SomeShare>. But if a user had logged into a machine before Christmas but not since, that machine was still looking for \\SomeServer\SomeShare<file:///\\SomeServer\SomeShare> to sync their files. And with XP, whenever any user that uses offline files logs in, the machine apparently tries to sync files for every user who had ever logged in (even users who hadn't logged in for months). Which was okay, except that on Monday \\SomeServer<file:///\\SomeServer> went away. The files stored in SomeShare were actually on a PowerVault, which I relocated to \\NewServer<file:///\\NewServer>. I configured DFS to make \\NewServer\SomeShare<file:///\\NewServer\SomeShare> the new target for \\OurDomain\dfs\whatever<file:///\\OurDomain\dfs\whatever>, and all worked well except for the machines that were still convinced that \\SomeServer<file:///\\SomeServer> was out there somewhere. The moral of this story is, for crying out loud use DFS whenever possible. Especially for things like roaming profiles and redirected folders. It makes life a whole lot easier when changes have to be made, and sooner or later changes ALWAYS have to be made. The other thing I learned is that the next time I buy a big storage device, it's going to plug directly into the network instead of connecting to a server. It's too much of a pain to have one physically tied to a particular server, especially if that server needs to be decommissioned and replaced. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 1:47 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Offline Files Question Are these offline file administratively assigned, and has that list been updated? My guess is yes to the former, no to the latter based on the fact that users couldn't modify offline files. Of course, I could be talking out of my hat, because I'm out of my experience base. I stamped out Offline Files here a while ago. The previous admin was in love with it, me not so much, and it caused some problems for a number of our applications. On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 1:25 PM, John Hornbuckle <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: One thing I should add... I'm not looking to disable offline files. We're still using that feature-just with a different server. So I need XP to stop trying to synch with the old server that no longer exists (or to at least stop fussing that it can't reach that server)... From: John Hornbuckle [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 1:16 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Offline Files Question Crap... Just realized I had applied those policies at a higher level than I meant to. So they were applying to everyone, rather than just a specific subset of users who need offline files. Gotta fix that. From: Jonathan Link [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 1:05 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Offline Files Question http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc759721.aspx Per the article, the behavior you're describing looks like you've disabled user configuration of offline files, but haven't disabled offline files. On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 1:01 PM, John Hornbuckle <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: We recently decommissioned a server, but a number of XP machines are still trying to synch files with it using the Offline Files feature. I found this article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/230738 But on the SP3 machines we've checked, there is no "Offline Files" tab under Folder Options. Besides, we have too many machines doing this for us to manually go around to each one. Anyone know of a way to clear this up en masse (group policy, login script, etc.)? This appears to be unique to XP; offline files don't behave the same way with Vista. With XP, every time any user logs in or out, the machine tries to synch offline files for any user who has ever logged into that machine (even if the current user has no offline files). And if it hits an error-which it always will, because it's trying to synch with a server that no longer exists-the machine will hang on shutdown until the user clicks a button. John Hornbuckle MIS Department Taylor County School District www.taylor.k12.fl.us<http://www.taylor.k12.fl.us/> ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
