OfflineFiles are downloaded completely each time vista restarts

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Guest

Hello,

i am running Windows Vista Business which is part of a Windows SBS 2003
domain. Therefore the users profile and documents are synchronized
constantly. In Windows XP this worked perfectly well. But in Vista all
offlinefiles are downloaded completely (about 4Gb in this case) each time the
computer is restarted, There is a enormous network traffic and harddisc
access for at least 15min after restart. (By the way, "Windows Search" is
deactivated)
I found no option in Vista to control or setup anything about the
offlinefiles. The schedule in the synchronizations-center is useless. So what
can I do that the files aren`t downloaded completely ?


Thx
Waigel
 
Hi Waigel,
Offline Files in Vista will not be copying down all the 4GB everytime you
log on. It will only try to sync items that are changed on the client or
server while offline.
What are you using to verify that Offline Files is downloading all 4GB each
time?

Thanks,
Shubhankar
 
Hi,

I used Ethereal to check what is transferred over the network at startup.
This is where I found out that there were at least several GBs downloaded at
startup, because it is a gigabyte network and there is really have load.
Secondly as I described before, heavy HDD access and network load do NOT
appear, when the service "Offline Files" is deactivated. So my only
conclusion is that the offline files are transferred each time completely,
cause otherwise this makes no sense.
(When I come back from hibernation mode, the synchronizations center works
as intended and does only synchronize the changed files. This only appears
when I do a clean restart or true shutdown of the pc)

So are there any other conclusions about what this could be ?

Thx
Waigel
 
Hi,
I checked that this is actually due to the fact that group policy is applied
afresh everytime you log in. The fix should be in a future qfe. I'll update
the group with more info when I have it.

Thanks,
Shubhankar
 
Hello

I have the exact same problem (but not on an SBS network).

I have narrowed this problem down to the fact that the "Documents" folder is
redirected via a GPO in our setup. When I Enable "User
Configuration>Administrative Templates>System>Folder Redirection>Do not
automatically make redirected folders available offline" the problem goes
away.

I have monitored this with procmon and when this setting is enabled,
svchost.exe runs over all the files very fast. When I disable this setting,
svchost.exe just downloads every file completely.

Has Microsoft come up with a solution already?

I have this one pending issue with offline files: when I am offline and I
want to start a shortcut from my desktop (which is not redirected) to an
offline file, it can sometimes take up to 30 seconds to start.

Example: shortcut to mstsc.exe needs default.rdp which is located in the
Documents folder. When I am offline I have to wait 30 seconds EVERY time I
double-click this shortcut. When I run it from the start menu, I have the
same problem. When I am online, I do not have a problem, it start very fast.

Is there anyone with the same problem?

regards,

Wout
 
Hi,

I checked this out at my SBS domain controller and found no GPO like "Do not
automatically make redirected folders available offline". Even the folder "Folder Redirection" under Administrative Templates>System does not exist.
Click to expand...
But if you turn of this GPO as you described, don`t you turn of offline
files at all ? Cause when I turn of the offline files service at windows
vista the download at startup is stopped as well, but the files arent
available offline of course.
I hope that the Vista SP1 will be released very fast that probably solves
this problem. It's really annoying.

Perhaps anyone else has a proper solution ?



With your 30sec problem I cannot help you cause my clients are mostly
online, so that I haven't checked out this issue, yet.
 
This is because you are not editing your (Vista) policies from a Vista
workstation.

To put it in Windows Server 2003 terms: Administrative
Templates>Network/Offline Files>Do not automatically make redirected folders
available offline. Enable this setting.

No you don't turn off offline files completly, you can still choose which
folder you make available offline from your workstation. The above setting
only makes redirected folders automatically available offline.

Can you test and provide some feedback please?



Wout
 
Hello,

I tested your advice and it works perfectly. I disabled "Synchronisize all
offline files when logging on", "Synchronisize all offline files before
logging off" and "Synchronisize offline files before suspend". I enabled "Do
not automatically make redirected folders available offline" as well and the
offline files aren't downloaded at each restart anymore.

That did the trick. Thank you very much. Problem solved
 
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