Offline Files and new file server

[J_Worth]

Hello fellow edugeekers!

 

We have recently commissioned a new file server and every member of teaching staff has their own laptop with offline files setup to make their home drives available to them when they are working at home etc.

 

However, my question is how it'll handle a change of file server. For example offline files points to:

\\old-server\staff\%username%

And the new file server uses:

\\new-server\staff$\%username%

 

Is there a way of redirecting offline files so that it no longer points to the old server and instead uses the new server?

 

My worry is that staff are going to come into school and the document they worked on the previous night (the night we shut the old server down) will not be synced up to the network because old-server is "not available".

 

Many thanks in advance.

[jamesreedersmith]

No you will have to sync the laptop and then move the data (dont allow them to work at home that night/weekend) then in school the next day reset the offline file cache and resync, this is where having a DFS set up is useful as this will prevent this problem in the future.

[snagrat]

Or if you can rename the new server to the old name (or do it via DNS) so the client doesn't see a change.

[plexer]

Yes you need csccmd 1.1 to do it.

 

Ben

[plexer]

/MOVESHARE:\\Server1\Share\\Server2\Share– Use this switch to move files and directories from one share to another share in the cache. This option is useful if the target of offline files has moved and if the local cache now must point to a new location. For example, use the following command:CSCCMD /MOVESHARE:\\MyServer\MyShare\\MyServer1\MyShare1

 

You will need to find a copy though and then you can provide a shortcut or batch file to your users.

 

Ben

Edited October 8, 2014 by plexer

[sted]

i have in the past just copied all data and permissions accross and then changed the user area section in ad and its carried on as if nothing has happened its just continued syncing the data between laptop and new server as if nothing has changed

[J_Worth]

Yes you need csccmd 1.1 to do it.

 

I have managed to find a copy of this utility, however, when running it on Windows 7, the following error message is displayed:

 

"The ordinal 45 could not be located in the dynamic link library"

[plexer]

my bad was on phone this morning so didn't see what forum this was in, I've used it on XP and looks like it may not work for 7.

 

Ben

[plexer]

Not tried it but this may work

 

CscRenameItem.vbs - The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

 

Would need extensive testing though.

 

How many machines do you have?

 

Ben

[J_Worth]

I will take a look at that - thanks.

[greyskull]

Oh lordy.... The pain of off line files!

[plexer]

The wmi class as used in the script linked to does appear to be the way to do it it's not nice though and if it works for you please feedback.

 

Some more information can be found Win32_OfflineFilesCache class (Windows)

 

Just noticed as well that using this needs sys admin privileges which is a bigger pain as the old csccmd didn't it could be run as the user.

 

Ben

Edited October 8, 2014 by plexer

[jamin100]

Old thread I know but did you ever manage this?

Ive got to do similar very soon.

 

Thanks

 

Ben

[J_Worth]

Old thread I know but did you ever manage this?

Ive got to do similar very soon.

 

Thanks

 

Ben

 

Hi.

 

It was surprisingly ok. We had already introduced DFS about a month before we moved over to the new file server and it would seem that Offline Files had updated itself to use the new path, therefore, it was an easy switch in the end: just changed the folder target on DFS Management.

 

The only issue we did have, were some users had recent documents that pointed directly to \\SERVERNAME\SHARE\ instead of \\DOMAIN.COM\DFS\SHARE and obviously that absolute server path wouldn't have existed.

 

So to summarise, it wasn't nearly as bad as we initially thought. If you can, implement DFS - it really does help save a lot of hassle.

 

Hope this helps.