Offline Files on laptops

[Darylrese]

Hi Guys,

 

I want to make everyone's home drive available offline for use on laptops, how do I do this through group policy? I have been to COMPUTER CONFIG > ADMIN TEMPLATES > NETWORK > OFFLINE FILES but not sure what to put in the Value field?

 

The drive I want to sync is M:

 

Also, our staff having roaming profiles and are reporting when they go home, the desktop icons are greyed out. Is there a way of making the desktop available offline too?

 

We have been doing it manually for staff so far but its too time consuming.

 

Regards

[psydii]

Sounds like you've got 'do not automatically make redirected folders available offline' enabled for staff on laptops.

 

This is probably because the same settings apply when they are on wired desktops and that can give a confusing experience to the end user as well as put unnecessary load in the file servers.

 

The bit about desktop being greyed out suggests though that it is also redirected, however in another post you imply that the desktop is in the roaming profile.

 

Have you looked at the output of gpresult /h gpresult.html on both a staff laptop and a desktop with a member of staff logged in?

[detjo]

I had trouble getting this to work successfully at first, but cracked it in the end. Here are some notes I kept on it:

 

 

 

To set up offline file synchronization on laptops, ensure Redirected Folders is set up first!

This should enable the 'Make Available Offline' option, for the docs folder.

 

Redirecting Home folders requires the following:

 

1. Create a hidden share on the server, such as \\serverName\Doc$

2. In the share permissions tab, give 'Everyone' full control (According to MS if the root folder does not allow full control in share permissions, errors will occur)

3. In the security permissions, give 'Authenticated Users' read access (this will allow all users to read all subfolders as security permissions will be inherited - hence the reason for hidden share). If this step is skipped, you will most likely get 'Access Denied' errors when synchronizing offline files, as the windows sync checks the permission on the root folder on first sync. If read permission fails, errors will occur!

 

4. Set the Home folder path in the users AD profile tab to \\serverName\Doc$\Staff\%username% (adjust accordingly)

5. Set a GPO for the users to redirect the documents folder to %HOMEDRIVE%\ and pictures as %HOMEDRIVE%\My Pictures etc. - this will map the redirection as a variable and is more forgiving if Home folder should be moved!

 

 

In the Offline Files GPO settings I have the following:

COMPUTER CONFIG > ADMIN TEMPLATES > NETWORK > OFFLINE FILES

Administratively assigned offline files - Enabled - Value = %HOMEDRIVE%

Allow or Disallow use of the Offline Files Feature- Enabled

 

Hope this helps

Edited January 27, 2014 by detjo