Briefcase not synching file within folders

[Avi Jacobson]

I am running XP Home and have encountered a problem with Briefcase.

I am running a peer-to-peer network with several XP Home machines.
When I create a briefcase -- either on my local machine or on the
network -- and attempt to copy files to it, they copy and synch fine.
But when I copy FOLDERS, the folders appear to copy properly, but they
show up in the Briefcase EMPTY. When I try to update them, Briefcase
tells me that they are already up-to-date. Whatever caused this
change, it happened within the past 24 hours. Here are the only things
I have done in the past 24 hours that I can think of, that might have
caused this:

- Disabled the Indexing Service (I have since re-enabled it, but that
hasn't solved the problem)
- Defragged the Hard Disk
- Run a Virus Scan on the Hard Disk

In what may or may not be a related issue, I am also unable to restore
to any System Restore points earlier than Friday afternoon, which is
when I did those three things.

How can I get my Briefcase working properly again?

Thanks!

 

[Avi Jacobson]

This took me hours, but here's the solution:

If you uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast
file searching" on the Properties tag of your hard drive, you will no
longer be able to drag folders from that drive into a Briefcase. Check
the checkbox (and re-enable the service, if you need to), and you
will. This isn't documented ANYWHERE that I could find (and I'm good
at finding this stuff) -- and meanwhile, many people suggest disabling
indexing without mentioning this side-effect. I'm posting this so the
next poor bastard who looks up this problem will find the solution
faster than I did.