Offline Files/Working From Home

[GRitchie]

I've written about this before, but now we're seeing that 'offline files' has had mixed reviews?

 

Has anyone used this in a scenario where staff have a mapped drive, then using offline files at home, then re-syncing at school?

 

Does it work? Is it difficult? Any common problems?

 

Thanks!

[BKGarry]

We have it running here, have done since the days of XP.

 

Most of the time it works fine, just make sure that your shared resources drive is not on the same server as their home drive, as it tries to synchronise that sometimes, which can be a pain.

 

Personally, not many issues here, sometimes they end up working "offline" when their wireless switches from one WAP to another, but they just click the work online button on the shared folder and it works again

[GRitchie]

We have it running here, have done since the days of XP.

 

Most of the time it works fine, just make sure that your shared resources drive is not on the same server as their home drive, as it tries to synchronise that sometimes, which can be a pain.

 

Personally, not many issues here, sometimes they end up working "offline" when their wireless switches from one WAP to another, but they just click the work online button on the shared folder and it works again

 

Any simple tutorials/guides for setup?

[BKGarry]

I use GPO and just make sure it is enabled for staff using laptops https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc759721(v=ws.10).aspx

 

Pretty much just use the default windows settings, as it seems to synchronise the home drive by default

[Sagima]

We gave up on it this year - too many failed syncs and conflicts. Moving to using work folders now. Just finished setting it up for testing over the next term.

[GRitchie]

We gave up on it this year - too many failed syncs and conflicts. Moving to using work folders now. Just finished setting it up for testing over the next term.

 

Work Folders?

[BKGarry]

Go for work folders if you can, that is the thing on my list to do

[Sagima]

Work Folders for Windows 7 and 8. It's like OneDrive but syncs with your local fileserver. Encrypts files and gives you the ability to remotely delete if needed. Also it allows them to be redirected to another location such as a memory card. Works for non-domain computers as well.

Sync is immediate on file change - if no network connection is availble it checks every 5 mins I think.

 

I was going to post a quick summary of what I did as an answer to my earlier post asking if anyone had implemented it yet - it's quite easy.

 

(also available on iOS but it's not brilliant - read only or save a local copy for editing. Webdav is better for ios we think.)

Edited April 14, 2015 by Sagima

[GRitchie]

Work Folders for Windows 7 and 8. It's like OneDrive but syncs with your local fileserver. Encrypts files and gives you the ability to remotely delete if needed. Also it allows them to be redirected to another location such as a memory card. Works for non-domain computers as well.

 

I was going to post a quick summary of what I did as an answer to my earlier post asking if anyone had implemented it yet - it's quite easy.

 

(also available on iOS but it's not brilliant - read only or save a local copy for editing. Webdav is better for ios we think.)

 

I read that it's for Server 2012 - does the file server need to be on 2012, or can I configure it on another server and point it to an 08R2 file server?

[Sagima]

I read that it's for Server 2012 - does the file server need to be on 2012, or can I configure it on another server and point it to an 08R2 file server?

 

No I think you need a 2012r2 fileserver

[witch]

Hmm

We have also used offline files since XP days in both my schools. It generally works fine although sometimes the syncing in Windows 7 takes a ridiculously long time and things have gone missing - particularly powerpoints for some reason.

Work folders sounds good though

[BKGarry]

all hail @witch

 

I was starting to think that I am the only on using offline files then

[abillybob]

A good alternative is file cloud Tonido Drive application. Connects to your file server remotely and gives the end user 1 mapped network drives with all the separate drives appearing as folders. mean's their online all of the time and no need for offline files.

 

Though I used offline files and yes it can be buggy and annoying but most of the time it works well.

[psydii]

I've used them since 2001 and was extremely excited when I read about the feature in 1999 The problems around Windows 7 (I skipped out on Vista) were horrific.

 

I haven't got anything running 8.1, but if you are on 7 make sure you have the patches on everything, and then it is wonderful.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2775511

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2473205

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2820927

 

I do keep looking at Work Folders, but for reasons I forget I've never felt them ready to put into production as a replacement for Offline Files/Folder redirection. (and as I was building a green field site this year so I even had a chance to do it without the overhead of migrating users work practices).

 

I would strongly recommend reading the relevant chapter in Windows Internals 6th Edition, and the Windows 7 Resource Kit, as well as the following references:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/understanding-offline-files#1TC=windows-7

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg277982(v=ws.10).aspx

Edited April 14, 2015 by psydii

[Bankesy]

Hello

 

This post caught my eye as Offline Files are something I have been working on in this school for a while, just ask witch who probably remembers trying to talk me through the initial setup in a different section of this forum.

 

It came about here because the staff laptops were used just as stand alones at home but the new Headteacher wanted them to be integrated with the network but used offsite with access to documents.

 

So having inherited this network I simply created a new OU in the same existing OU that all the other PCs in the school belong to knowing that they would pick up the same configuration (I also re-imaged the laptops using Windows Deployment).

 

Seeing as Offline Files had never been used before I picked through the existing policies applying to Computer OU's and User OU's to determine how it had been disabled and took a copy of the setup.

 

With this copy I felt confident to set all the parts of the policies restricting Offline Files to 'Not Configured', problem was this was a bit of a broad application and while it did work on the laptops it also set Offline Files running on all PCs regardless if staff or students logged in which took up some hard drive space...

 

...until...

 

...an older friend of mine who has done this for years and luckily holds some Microsoft certification pointed out I didn't have that quite right and that on the main policy being applied to all the PC's I should put back the parts restricting Offline Files then make a new policy just to reverse the configuration of these parts and apply it only to the laptop OU

 

Conclusions

 

Does it work perfectly every single time?-No sometimes users get conflicts or errors

Does it work well enough to be worth it?-Yes out of the whole project I was able to end up with staff laptops being configured to look and feel the exact same as the PCs with access to their files offsite without interfering with anything onsite. Even at times during testing when Offline Files were disabled staff were coming and asking what had happened and saying how useful it was so it clearly works well enough

Permissions-our user my documents are in a share inside a share and I read a lot about the different permissions needed over the shares depending on their level but it still seems to work as well as it does without these in place

Anything else?-This fix helped along the way for any laptops that really weren't playing ball: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2561708

 

 

Happy to share the exact policy parts I played with if anybody is interested

 

I should say the laptops\PCs run Windows 7, the DC server is 2008 and the file server is 2003

Edited April 15, 2015 by Bankesy

[sted]

We gave up on it this year - too many failed syncs and conflicts. Moving to using work folders now. Just finished setting it up for testing over the next term.

 

have you got this working externally so people can sync stuff when just on their home connection or just internally?

[sonic1485]

We too gave up on Offline Files recently. We are currently trialling Home Access Plus as a sort-of alternative with some staff and are very pleased with it so far.

[Sagima]

have you got this working externally so people can sync stuff when just on their home connection or just internally?

 

yes - I just set up a dns entry with our domain provider for workfolders.myschool.net and published it on port 443 through smoothwall forwarding back to the fileserver. I checked last night that it would sync and could be set up when out of school and it was fine. I did discover that if you have it set to use a removable drive like we do (microsd card) then removing the drive while windows is running will break work folders and you have to wipe the card and start again which is a bit rubbish

[sted]

yes - I just set up a dns entry with our domain provider for workfolders.myschool.net and published it on port 443 through smoothwall forwarding back to the fileserver. I checked last night that it would sync and could be set up when out of school and it was fine. I did discover that if you have it set to use a removable drive like we do (microsd card) then removing the drive while windows is running will break work folders and you have to wipe the card and start again which is a bit rubbish

 

is your internal domain name same as external though as mine are school.internal and testing with my own .me.uk address evey guide ive seen just glosses over that

[Sagima]

No. My internal domain is .school and my external domain (for services) is .net

We have a local dns entry for the .net domain so name resolution is the same both internally and external for services.

It is secured with our wildcard certificate. I did have to import the certificate and do a thumbprint thing to it following this guide Work Folders Certificate Management - The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs "Installing a Certificate" and "Configure SSL Certificate Binding" which the guide I started with had completely omitted.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Sagima
spelling

[sted]

No. My internal domain is .school and my external domain (for services) is .net

We have a local dns entry for the .net domain so name resolution is the same both internally and external for services.

It is secured with our wildcard certificate. I did have to import the certificate and do a thumbprint thing to it following this guide Work Folders Certificate Management - The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogs "Installing a Certificate" and "Configure SSL Certificate Binding" which the guide I started with had completely omitted.

 

so youve got work folder set up so users "log in" is [email protected] rather than if they were on a normal pc as [email protected]?

[Sagima]

Nope - using the URL.

[Bankesy]

We use HAP+ here too but I came in to what I think is a pretty old version of it and trying to upgrade is proving difficult

[sted]

Nope - using the URL.

 

so you just have a 2nd dns zone with workfolders (or whatever its called) in for internal resolution like this

 

[Sagima]

yes - all of our published services have entries in our other dns zone. We have just bought our internal domain name now that .school is available so I'll be working on unifying them over the summer.