Microsoft Office and Windows 7 Offline Files

[Sanchez]

I have seen this question (or similar) on a few forums but I haven’t come across an answer that works in my situation so here goes…

 

I have this problem with several new windows 7 pro 32bit laptops on the network connected to a 2003 server. I have folder redirection enabled on the ‘Documents’ folder pointing to their homedrive (\\server\username$ to M:\). As these laptops need to be used away from the network the M drive and desktop folder have offline files enabled (this is working fine and syncing correctly).

 

This setup is working fine in all respects except one, Office documents won’t save to the M drive!

 

This is what I have tried:-

 

Saving word and excel documents to the M drive fails with one of the following messages

There have been a network or file permission error

File not saved

Word cannot save or create this file. Make sure the disk you want to save the file on is not full, write-protected, or damaged.

 

I have tried different versions of word and excel (2003, 2007 and 2010)

 

Files won’t save in online or offline mode

 

File permissions are correct on the share

 

AV is not interfering (temporarily disabled on client and server for testing)

 

Can save to other shares / mapped drives

 

I can save other types of files to the M drive (eg from wordpad and paint)

 

I can save to the local drive and then copy and paste to the M drive

 

Works if I disable offline files (but I need offline files enabled)

 

I have tried hotfixes from MS and I’ve tried removing updates that might be at fault

 

Installed service pack 1 with no change

 

Made sure that OpLocks is enabled

 

Formatted the Offline files cache

 

From what I have read it has something to do with the way office uses temp files when saving and needs exclusive access to the file and offline files seems to get in the way. If any of you have any ideas what to try next I’d be grateful as this one has me pulling my hair out!

[sukh]

Hi

 

Can you tell me if what hotfixes you have removed?

Have you removed all Office installations (if more than one has been installed) on your Windows 7 PC and have installed only one version of Office to test?

 

Let me know.

 

Thanks

Sukh

[Sanchez]

Hi sukh,

 

I'm testing on two machines

#1 is win7 pro 32 with service pack 1 and office 2010 no update are missing on this one

#2 is a clean install of win7 pro 32 without sp1 and update KB980232 (even though KB983458 fixes the problem caused by KB980232 I wanted to try it)

I have since installed all updates on #2 except sp1. This machine has office 2003 installed.

 

Sanch

[sukh]

Hi Sanchez

 

OK. On #2 was you able to reproduce the issue?

When removing the hotfix KB980232 did it work?

Or when applying the KB983458 did it then work?

If you have a clean buld of Win 7 with Office 2010 and applied without KB980232 & KB983458 , do you still have issues.

 

Thanks

Sukh

[Sanchez]

The issue is always the same in every situation. The only time I can save to the M drive is if I disable offline files all other attempted fixes have failed so far. No combination of adding of removing hotfixes has made any difference.

 

Thanks

Sanch

[sukh]

Hi

 

Can you post the exact error message?

 

Also, you probably have checked the event logs, are there any errors around the time when you try to save?

 

Thanks

Sukh

[Sanchez]

Hi

On Word 2003 the message is 'Word cannot save or create this file. Make sure the disk you want to save the file on is not full, write-protected, or damaged.' followed by the path and file name I tried to use.

You receive a "Word cannot save or create this file" error message when you try to save a file on a network drive in Word 2002 and in Word 2003 seems to refer to this issue.

On Word 2010 the message is 'There has been a network or file permission error. The network connection may be lost.' followed by the filename.

You receive a “There has been a network or file permission error. The network connection may be lost” error message when you work over a network in Word seems the same although it doesn't mention word 2010.

Also there are no errors in the event log at the time of saving.

 

thanks

Sanch

[plexer]

Those are all old documents though are they relevant to 7?

 

I have the same issue with offline files and my 1 windows 7 laptop offline files user.

 

Ben

[simpsonj]

Sounds similar to an issue I had, do users have access to App data on the local C:\ drive? Don't need to see it, just need read/write access to it.

[sukh]

Hi

 

Can you run gpresults on a problem machine with the problem user and post the results here or PM me?

 

What I'm looking for in particular is the GPO settings for the offline files.

 

Thanks

Sukh

[sukh]

Hi Plexer/Sanchez,

 

Any progress on this?

 

Thanks

Sukh

[Sanchez]

Problem solved!

 

First off I’d like to thank those members that have tried to help out, it is much appreciated and without it I would still probably be scratching my head.

 

In preparation for sukh’s request for gpresult information I decided to make a new gpo with just the offline files settings in. I applied the new gpo to a test computer in a new OU and it worked without a problem (I should have done this much earlier). All I had to do then was track down the policy setting that was causing the issue.

 

It turned out that I should learn to read policy setting descriptions more carefully. I had enabled the ‘Exclude files from being cached’ policy (in an attempt to save some bandwidth and local disk space) and included ‘*.tmp’ files among others. The description of this policy clearly states ‘A user will then be unable to create a file of this type in the folders that have been made available offline.’.

 

Office uses ‘*.tmp’ files when saving then renames them to the appropriate office extension, so this policy was blocking any office app from being able to save to an offline location. As soon as I removed that policy offline files started to work as expected.

 

Just as a side note I should have used the ‘Files not cached’ policy setting if I wanted users to be able to save any file but only have certain file types available offline.

 

Thanks again for the help and hopefully this might help someone else.

 

Sanch

[sukh]

Hi Sanchez

 

I was going to mention this but I wanted to have a look at your offlie GPO settings. Glad it's working.

 

FYI - Description of how Word creates temporary files

 

Regards

Sukh