Cannot disable offline files

[Mark Renfrew]

I have an SBS2003 network, and installed all the updates for Vista support.
I previously created a Group Policy for computers to disable the use of
Offline folders for my desktops. It works fine for all my XPSP2 desktops,
but my new Vista desktops show the Offline files "States" is enabled and the
option is greyed out.
The redirected folders (My Documents) are all synchronizing.

I then created another GPO for the users to enable the "Do not automatically
make redirected folders available offline", but still the option is enabled
and greyed out.

The GPO locations I have configured (and work fine for XP) are as follows:

Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> Offline
Files
Disabled the "Allow or Disallow use of the Offline Files feature"

User Configuration ->Administrative Templates -> System -> Folder
Redirection
Enabled the "Do not automatically make redirected folders available offline"

Is there another location that I should be looking at?

Thanks for your help

 

[Mark Renfrew]

Also note I have downloaded and installed "Windows Mobile Device Centre". I
don't know if this matters, I have Activesync 4.5 on the XP machine.

Thanks

 

[Shubhankar Sanyal [MSFT]]

Hi Mark,
1. When you say "The redirected folders (My Documents) are all
synchronizing", what are you basing this on? Do you see the sync center
system tray icon rotating?
2. Also are your "my docs" actually available offline?
3. Do you have any shares other than mydocs that you might have made
available offline? (you can look in the Offline Files control panel applet
to view file svailable offline)
4. Were you "my docs" ever available offline before you applied the policy?

Thanks,
Shubhankar

 

[Mark Renfrew]

I don't know what is going on, I re-checked this morning and offline files
appears to be disabled on my Vista machine and everything is working
properly. Previously:

I know offline files was enabled because I had modified an accounting Excel
spreadsheet on my Vista machine. I then shut it down and when I tried to
open the spreadsheet on my XP box, it wasn't there (Panic). I only saw
temporary files on the network folder. I restarted my Vista and it showed
the files on the network folder like normal. However it still didn't show on
my XP box. After a few reboots on my Vista, it came up with the sync window
stating there was a "file discrepency" (can't remember the exact wording)
and I chose to overwrite the file on the network server. After that I could
access the file from XP.

Also from the sync center, one of the rows said my files were "ready for
first sync". If I right-clicked a folder on my network drive, it gave me the
option "Make Always available offline" (can't remember the exact wording).
Also, all my files/folders in My Documents had the circle in front of them

Now, I don't get the offline option when I right-click the folder, and there
is no row in sync center saying ready for first sync. I have had the
"computer" policy in effect far before I installed my Vista box. After
creating the "User" policy, I ran gpupdate /force and rebooted several times
but it didn't seem to change anything. (I had also created the Vista group
policy share on the server under sysvol\rpc.local\Policies\PolicyDefinitions
and managed them with my Vista box)

Anyways, I don't know what happened to make it take effect now, but it seems
to be working properly ??

Thanks for your response.