Offline Files - Desktop Only

[jmafc]

Hi

 

I just wanted to put a quick question to everyone and see if my vision is feasible

 

I have taken of IT Support for a school

 

We have around 20 Staff laptops which unfortunately have been setup with Profiles (not the way i like to do it)

 

Offline Files is disabled as it is a pain and staff access there shares etc via a TSGW.

 

Basically, when they delete things on the TSGW desktops on their profiles it doesn't reflect when they log back into their machines, i suspect because of the local profiles on the laptops. Also it take ages for staff to log on on different machines

 

My hope was, if possible. To remove Staff profiles and instead setup folder re-direction to their H Drive for Desktop and Favorites along with there current documents etc.

 

The question is, is there a way to enable JUST offline files on the Desktop Folder in everyone's H Drive??

 

I have noticed issues when we do setup re-directed desktops in another school when staff get home they only have a black desktop. I don't want anything else to be available in their H Drive just their Desktop so they can get into the TSGW Icon easily

 

Any opinions would be much appreciated

 

Kind Regards

 

Jack

[SYNACK]

Yes, administratively assigned offline files to \\server\share\%username%\desktop and switch off automatically make available offline files then disable the config of offline files all through gpo. I'd use a hybrid approach where they still had a profile but everything possible was redirected like desktop, docs, fav's and just leave the problematic stuff to roam, unfortunately this means appdata too which means that filth software like chrome will make profiles huge. You can also limit profile size in gpo but that will just give them a message when they have filled it. You can keep local profiles with a bunch of stuff redirected but that can cause other issues like filling up machines with profiles and users loosing most of their settings when they swap machines which can confuse them more than a little.

[SYNACK]

Oh, and look into directaccess, that plus decent settings gets rid of all those issues of not accessing shared folders or internal school resources from anywhere.

[jmafc]

Thats brillaint thanks

 

I will start setting up the GPO give it to our IT Co-ordinator to Test

 

Direct access is something i have just started looking at, it is used by the staff out our local council. We do around 60 Primary Schools in our area as a company and 90% of them use TSGW currently i would like to start trialing it but not sure if it is suitable for the smaller schools and what the reliability of it is like??

[jmafc]

Also when i enable Redirection of Desktop and Favourites will it automatically copy over the local desktop and Favourties contents??

[SYNACK]

 

Direct access is something i have just started looking at, it is used by the staff out our local council. We do around 60 Primary Schools in our area as a company and 90% of them use TSGW currently i would like to start trialing it but not sure if it is suitable for the smaller schools and what the reliability of it is like??

 

It's basically the same tech just better integrated so it works for all sorts of stuff, once it's going it makes things simpler for end users which makes it better for usage when there is limited skill and available training like may exist in a smaller school.

[SYNACK]

Also when i enable Redirection of Desktop and Favourites will it automatically copy over the local desktop and Favourties contents??

Only if you define it in the policy when you set it up. This can cause massive issues if you enable it on a huge desktop as there is no progress bar, at most a redirecting folders spinny wheel for a few hours which the user kills the power on and problems ensue. Better to script it or get the users to do it manually. Personally I put it in a subfolder of the documents as the users keep filling it with them anyway and them if you are syncing the docs anyway it all works out quite well.

[jmafc]

Cool

 

I have setup the Policy and the locations but it still seems to be only syncing all the documents

 

I cant see a GPO to turn off automatically making offline redirected folders

 

It was working for one login then gpupdated as a test and then went again

 

any ideas, probably me just being thick??

[SYNACK]

Did you set it as a per user policy, should be user policy and use the %username% parameter in the folder string to grab the current user folder, assuming the path has the username. The switching off or on of offline folders should be done in the machine policy, blocking it on workstations but turning it on, on staff laptops. I think the auto folder offlineing is something like 'automatically make redirected folders available offline' and should be in the user and machine policy (but may be in only one of those). Again, this relies on the laptops being in a separate ou from workstations. If you configure admin offline files in the per machine settings it tries to do it for all users that have logged in every time.

[jmafc]

Sorry i was testing with Blocked Inheritence OU's after i remvoed the All user policy which has the folder redirection for Documents it worked fine.

 

I have now set it in the same policy as the Desktop and Favourites redirection and seems to work fine

 

Thanks for your help will be testing it with a member of staff on Wednesday

[SYNACK]

Here are some of the policies I have set

Works for me, are you applying to a policy that affects users or machines. Machine based stuff will only apply if the GPO is set in the OU that houses the computers. Anyhow, add these and try again:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > Offline Files : Allow or Disallow the use of the offline files feature

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > Offline Files : Remove 'make avalible offline'

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > Offline Files : Prohibit user configuration of offline files

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > Offline Files : preven use of offline files folder

 

and make sure to run a gpupdate /force afterwards so that the policy is applied.

[SYNACK]

Sorry i was testing with Blocked Inheritence OU's after i remvoed the All user policy which has the folder redirection for Documents it worked fine.

 

I have now set it in the same policy as the Desktop and Favourites redirection and seems to work fine

 

Thanks for your help will be testing it with a member of staff on Wednesday

Cool, glad it's working now, good luck with your testing and remember it can be beneficial for users to do a sync on a wired connection if they have a huge documents folder as 80gb plus can take some dime over even the best wireless.

[jmafc]

Documents were already re-directed so there is no issues there. Just the Desktop i think the max i have found in the profiles is around 2GB and our wireless is pretty beefy so should be fine. i highly doubt that favourites will take up more than 10MB if that

[SYNACK]

Documents were already re-directed so there is no issues there. Just the Desktop i think the max i have found in the profiles is around 2GB and our wireless is pretty beefy so should be fine. i highly doubt that favourites will take up more than 10MB if that

That is over 2500 bookmarks assuming ntfs so you should be good on that front.

[jmafc]

I applied this today but on 7 out of the 20 laptops it still just tries to do the full documents not administravtely assinged which is flaming annoying as on the other 13 it works fine

 

I have adjusted everything and put it back again to try and see what it could be but nothing worked

 

Any ideas