Hi David,
I called the tech support line, and the lady wanted my Credit card
number to report this issue you and I recently discussed in this
newsgroup about Folder Redirection. I have copy , pasted, and removed
the extra 'junk' from the newsgroup to clean up our thread in an
effort to make submission easier. All I wanted was an email address or
something, to submit the problem through. Their is no way I am paying
$99 - $299 to report an bug in someone else product to them! We paid
over $1,000,000 for our EA, why should I be paying to report errors in
the product? How silly.
I felt it might be rude to post this on the newsgroup, as it makes
Microsoft look silly that they don't have someone on the phone who can
use some common sense and realize the difference between when they
should charge (when they help me) as opposed to when they don't make
it so difficult to report a bug, and it should be free (when I help
Microsoft.) I tried to email this to you directly, but your email
address in this thread doesn't work. (I can imagine why, you'd get
flooded with personal requests for help, no doubt)
This I so strange, I have done this before and gotten right in, no one
asks for a credit card, and they work on an issue for weeks. (When it
is so obviously an M.S. issue and not a ME issue)
Anyway, if your hands are tied, and you aren't allowed to submit our
findings for repair, let me know.
I apologize for posting all this on the newsgroup, but I see no other
way to get through to Microsoft if I refuse to give them my personal
credit card number to report something that you yourself have stated
is indeed on the Microsoft side of the problem, to resolve.
Full thread edited for clarity, is below my sig block. This could make
it easier for you to cut and paste from.
Bruce D. Meyer, CCNA, MCSE
City of Columbia, SC
(also,
www.kg4tac.net)
x----thread begins---x
All messages from thread
Message 1 in thread
From: Bruce D. Meyer
I have been reading and searching but found nothing yet. When I set up
in GPO folder redirection for 'my documents' automatically,
synchronization is enabled. This is a huge problem. We have a 4 GB
system partition, and modified the registry so all programs always
default to the D drive for programs installs and data storage. So D
drive could be 40 GB, but C drive is 4 GB. With synchronization
enabled, someone with several GB of files in My Documents suddenly
runs out of space on the C drive as the synched files are now being
stored in documents and Settings (username) on the C drive. I guess a
good thing to do would be to modify that to the D drive instead of C
drive. Imagine having 10 users on one machine with 10's of megabytes
per user. The could wipe out the C drive very quickly. Anyway, that
isn't the question I have, but am interested in any discussion on
this. My question is:
Should I just disable Synchronization in GPO, or is their a better
place on the AD server I should disable synchronization? It strikes
me as odd that the default is to run synchronization, as My thoughts
are, that synch was for laptops, not computers on a network.
Comments FAQ's, KB articles are all welcome.
Bruce D. Meyer
www.kg4tac.net <
http://www.kg4tac.net>
----------------
Message 2 in thread
From: David Everett [MSFT]
Hello Bruce,
The following article addresses this exact issue and how to override
the automatic caching of redirected folders:
304624 Caching Redirected Folders Can Use All Available Disk Space
<
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=304624>
Folder Redirection was changed in Windows XP to automatically cache
all Redirected Folders. This feature was added in response to a vast
majority of customers who use Folder Redirection for portable computer
use. Prior to Windows XP any redirected folders required
Administrators to enable a second policy call "Administratively
assigned offline files" which required them to enter all of the
redirected folder paths. In large environments this can be a very
difficult task.
Windows XP addressed this problem by automatically caching redirected
folders. However, as you see this may not be the best choice for
desktop systems where drive space is restricted.
In addition to the article above, here is a TechNet article explaining
Offline Files. The last paragraph specifically mention the change to
Redirected Folders in Windows XP.
<
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...urces/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-
us/prdc_mcc_oaiu.asp>
--
David Everett
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
----------------
Message 3 in thread
From: Bruce D. Meyer
Thank you for replying sir. Just for clarification. I am using Windows
2000 Pro on all workstations, (around 1,000) and Windows 2000 for the
servers. We don't have a single XP box anywhere on our network. I must
assume that this automatic synchronizing in Windows 2000 is perhaps
due to a particular Service pack then? (since it was only introduced
in XP?)
I checked:
Administratively assigned offline files It is set to 'not configured'
(I checked this in both the Computer and the User configuration
portion where both these policies exist.)
I also checked, 'Synchronize all offline files before logging off' in
computer and user configuration, and they are also 'not configured'
I guess I am unclear (since these are pure Windows 2000 Workstation
and Server in these three locations) What is causing synchronizing of
files as soon as I enable folder redirection. Thank you so much for
your time.
Bruce Meyer
www.kg4tac.net
----------------
Message 4 in thread
From: Bruce D. Meyer
I forgot to mention, In Window 2000 GPO, :
a.. User Configuration
b.. Administrative Templates
c.. Network
d.. Offline Files
a.. Double-click Do not automatically make redirected folders
available offline.
Doesn't exist as it does in XP. (Looking at the servers GPO for the
OU, which is where I assume I will be making a change to prevent the
Host machines for synching all the time. I have read all the other
Policies in the 'network' context and found none that seem to
specifically address the problem.
Help!
Bruce Meyer
----------------
Message 5 in thread
From: David Everett [MSFT]
It appears we have backported the functionality to SP4 and I have what
looks like a repro here. However, it does not look like we have
backported the system.adm policy setting of "Do not automatically make
redirected folders available offline".
Repro Steps:
=======
Clean SP4 DC, clean SP4 Pro machine (both with blaster patch). New
OU, new user in OU, new share with Default Settings, new GPO with
Redirected My Documents, and it gets applied at logon. I add files to
My Documents and it is cached into Offline Files.
Disable NIC and log the user off. I then alter data in Redirected
Folder on the server and log the user on with cached credentials. The
files I added to My Documents are there in the offline cache and the
new change I made to files on the share are not updated on the client.
Log the user off and on again and the data is still unchanged on the
client. I did not choose "Make Available Offline" at any point.
I enable the NIC and the changes I made to the data on the server
files appear on the client.
You should call the support line and open a support incident to have
this investigated further.
--
David Everett
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
"Bruce D. Meyer"
----------------
Message 6 in thread
From: David Everett [MSFT]
One workaround you might want to try. If these users never need their
data in the redirected folders pinned to the offline cache you could
"not Allow" offline caching on the share itself.
Right-click the share on the server, and click Sharing, click the
Caching button and uncheck "Allow caching of files in this shared
folder"
--
David Everett
Microsoft Corporation
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
"David Everett [MSFT]"
----------------
Message 7 in thread
From: Bruce D. Meyer Folder redirection and synchronization.
Very Slick!
I am looking for time to Call Microsoft and get this looked at so a
patch will be released. I appreciate all your help.
Bruce
