offline files

[nevje]

im redirecting users my documents folder to the users x: drive on the server
(each user has a seperate folder which is mapped as drive x) and for laptop
users i enable offline files so they have access while away from the office

it generally works well - my major problem is we have multiple offices
connected via a wan and once a user connects to the network from another
office it slows the system down a lot when working with their my documents.

is it possible to force win2k to always consider the files offline? similar
to working offline in outlook 2k? ... that way speed issue would be resolved
and the user can choose to synch only when at a suitably quick location

 

[Matt Hickman]

is it possible to force win2k to always consider the files offline? similar
to working offline in outlook 2k? ... that way speed issue would be resolved
and the user can choose to synch only when at a suitably quick location

W2K should access local offline files in preference to files on the network.
What is probably slowing things up is the sychronization of the offline
files accros a WAN connection.

I see a several possibilities:

1. check the "ask me before sycnhronizing the items" check box in
sychronization settings on the client. The users can then be told only
to do it when not at a remote site.

2. Select to sychronize when the computer is idle. The files
should get synched and the users shouldn't even notice a slow down.

3. set up the clients to manually synchronize. uncheck automatic synch
at logon and/or logoff.

4. set up the "Items to synchronize" using the drive pathing (X:\My Documents)
rather than UNC pathing (\\server\share\My Documents). Then configure things
so that users do not get their X: drive when when they are at a remote site.

You should be able to do this with Group Policy.