Offliine Files question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Craig Matchan
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Craig Matchan

Hi all,

I 've got a "Offline" files question. Forgive my ignorance in this area,
I've never really had much to do with it before.

Info: Client laptop is running WinXP Pro
Servers: Win2k Server SP4 / AD

The scenario is that we have a user who uses a laptop at work. At work it is
docked in a port replicator. When they log in at work they log into their
AD account. By default all of their work files are stored on a network
share. What they would like to happen is to have all of their work files
automatcially copied to the local HD when they work offline (at home) and
then to have any changed files automatically copied back to the network
share when they next login at work.

I've looked at this "Offline" files option and from my initial testing it
appears it is only really usefull if the network dies whilst the user has
already logged on and a sync has been done. If I logout and disconnect the
laptop from the network then

a) I can't login using the AD account because it can't authenticate to the
ADC
b) Loggin in via a local account won't give me access to the Offline
shortcut for the AD account.

Is there a way to to what I wan't to do? The only thing I can think of at
the moment is to create a directory on the laptops local HD with access for
both the AD and local accounts and get them to manually copy files to this
common area, but it doesn't seem to be the best way to do this, so I am sure
I'm missing something here.

Any help/suggestions most welcome.

regards

Craig
 
Craig said:
I 've got a "Offline" files question. Forgive my ignorance in this area,
I've never really had much to do with it before.

Info: Client laptop is running WinXP Pro
Servers: Win2k Server SP4 / AD

The scenario is that we have a user who uses a laptop at work. At work it is
docked in a port replicator. When they log in at work they log into their
AD account. By default all of their work files are stored on a network
share. What they would like to happen is to have all of their work files
automatcially copied to the local HD when they work offline (at home) and
then to have any changed files automatically copied back to the network
share when they next login at work.

I've looked at this "Offline" files option and from my initial testing it
appears it is only really usefull if the network dies whilst the user has
already logged on and a sync has been done. If I logout and disconnect the
laptop from the network then

a) I can't login using the AD account because it can't authenticate to the
ADC
Click to expand...

You should be able to login with the AD user even if the computer is offline,
this is supported by a system called "cached credentials".

It is enabled as default and there is no limitations to the number of times you
can log on with cached credentials in a row.

To see if cached credentials is disabled, see if CachedLogonsCount (Data Type:
REG_SZ) is set to 0 in this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon\

If it is 0, set it to e.g. 10 (that is the default value if no value is set) and
reboot.

Some think this number is the number of times a user can log on with cached
credentials.
This limited number of times is a common misunderstanding caused by the bad
wording in the documentation for cached credentials, mentioning that the cached
credentials is set to default 10 logons (can be set to up to 50).

What it really means is that the computer will remember the credentials for up
to 10 *different* users, and as long as you are among one of those, you can log
on with cached credentials as many times as you want, over a indefinite time.

When you have sorted out your problem with cached credentials, your Offline
Folders should start working.
 
HI Torgeir,

To see if cached credentials is disabled, see if CachedLogonsCount (Data Type:
REG_SZ) is set to 0 in this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon\

If it is 0, set it to e.g. 10 (that is the default value if no value is set) and
reboot.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I'll have a look tomorrow. Just checked my home XPPro
box and the def value for key was set as you mentioned, so I am expecting it
to be set on the laptop as well which is confusing because it means it
should have worked. I suppose the install of WinXP on the laptop could be
different, being a Sony Vaio it came with WinXP-Pro pre-installed.

I gather there are no domain or local policy settings to be set to make this
work as well are their? I had a good look at both policies but couldn't see
anything that stood out.

Anyway I'll see whats in the registry on the laptop and let you know how it
goes. You'll be hearing from me if it doesn't work :)

many thanks

Craig
 
Hi Torgeir,

I've had limited sucess, that is I was able to set it up on my home PC, but
for some reason I can't get it to work on the bosses laptop. Interestingly
enough that registry key you mentioned was set to 0, yet on other bog
standard XPPro installed it was set to 10. I can only assume that the
pre-installed WinXP from Sony has some different default settings, and
possibly this is what is causing it to not work.

Basically the syncing works, it just the cached login that isn't. Any other
ideas? I'm about to go through various policy settings on my desktop and his
laptop on the off chance there could be a local policy setting affecting
things. Is there an idiots paper on how this is meant to be configured or is
it deemed so easy any moron (except myself :) ) should be able to do it? The
way we intitially setup the laptop was just to add it to our domain, and
then he just logs in using his domain account. Someone else mentioned that I
should have used the user accounts control panel applet and added their AD
account that way. So I deleted the AD account from the laptop and added it
via the user accounts control panel applet but it's still no go.

One other question, when marking a whole directory tree as Offline (all sub
dirs to be sync'd as well), when viewing them via the offline shortcut all
the files are displayed on one flat level, you lose the tree structure. Is
this normal behaviour? It seems a bit odd and my boss want's to retain the
tree structure. I asume that the any files edited offline will be synced to
the correct place on the network when re-synced but I do find it odd that it
doesn't preserve the tree structure in offline mode.

regards

Craig
 
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