WinXP Offline Folder Sync Fails

[Guest]

Hi,
we have a number of laptops that are (by group policy) synchronizing their
desktop and "my documents" to a server within our network.

today - one of our users tried to synch and all the folders and files on the
desktop appeared to disappear. we quickly checked the server side - and they
were there, but try as we might, we could not get them back on the desktop.

one of my technicians found a forum where someone was mentioning that the
limit of offline sync'ing is 2GB. we went into windows explorer:
tools|folder options and then to the "offline files" tab. there we tried to
increase the slider for "amount of disk space to use for temporary offline
files" (which shows as a percentage of the drive. 1.98GB is 6% of the drive
space... so we tried to increase this to various amounts (10GB, 20GB, etc)
clicking on "apply" after every change. every time we went back in to check
- it was set back at 1.98GB (6% of drive).

this user (who is having this problem) has about 8GB of offline files.
first - it is odd to me that he got all the way up to 8GB without a failure
along the way. second - it is "so like" microsoft to put a control "image"
that would lead someone to believe that they have the freedom to select any
percentage of their drive for a purpose - only to truly limit it to some
relatively miniscule amount... but i don't want to even go there... anyway -
is this 2GB limit true? then what is the "best practice" where you have a
team of travelling laptop users who frequently have more than 8GB of active
material on their laptops?

thanks in advance, any help would be appreciated.

 

[Malke]

Hi,
we have a number of laptops that are (by group policy) synchronizing
their desktop and "my documents" to a server within our network.

today - one of our users tried to synch and all the folders and files
on the
desktop appeared to disappear. we quickly checked the server side -
and they were there, but try as we might, we could not get them back
on the desktop.

one of my technicians found a forum where someone was mentioning that
the
limit of offline sync'ing is 2GB. we went into windows explorer:
tools|folder options and then to the "offline files" tab. there we
tried to increase the slider for "amount of disk space to use for
temporary offline
files" (which shows as a percentage of the drive. 1.98GB is 6% of the
drive space... so we tried to increase this to various amounts (10GB,
20GB, etc)
clicking on "apply" after every change. every time we went back in to
check - it was set back at 1.98GB (6% of drive).

this user (who is having this problem) has about 8GB of offline files.
first - it is odd to me that he got all the way up to 8GB without a
failure
along the way. second - it is "so like" microsoft to put a control
"image" that would lead someone to believe that they have the freedom
to select any percentage of their drive for a purpose - only to truly
limit it to some relatively miniscule amount... but i don't want to
even go there... anyway -
is this 2GB limit true? then what is the "best practice" where you
have a team of travelling laptop users who frequently have more than
8GB of active material on their laptops?

I can't answer your question about offline files since I don't use them,
but I will suggest that instead of offline files you use an inexpensive
but extremely useful program called Second Copy to back up and sync
users' files. I'm not affiliated with them in any way; I've used the
program on clients' machines - both in homes and on servers in
businesses - for many years with good results.

Get Second Copy from www.centered.com.

Malke