Windows 7 Automatic Offline Files occuring on all shares

[tarquel]

Hi all

 

I'm gonna to scream in a minute but i cant quite fathom whats occurin' with this one.

 

Difficult to explain this one without giving some insight as to what we have setup so here we go:

 

With our computer replacement scheme, and some long hours by me, we've got a Windows 7 deployment system setup, along with a DFS Storage Share where the win7 roaming profiles and redirected folders point to (which as far as i can see / tested / used, is working a treat).

 

However, user naturally have to use shared documents on older storage systems - think the big old EMC Celera's type NAS systems - as this is a gradual process at the moment.

 

We've discovered, quite annoyingly, that users are getting a very strange issue when they access files on shared documents of these other storage systems that arent the roaming profile store.

 

For example, Word 2010 seems to create a .tmp file when the user uses a document from this shared area (permissions shouldnt be a problem as on this particular folder on this share, as 'Everyone' is set with Full Control), he's able to edit the document as normal, but when he saves it, it doesnt save it in the UNC path, although transparent to the user, it has, but it seems to have only saved it in the user's cache on his machine, and this .tmp file gets left in the UNC location.

 

Seemingly, this is Windows automatically caching files that the user uses on the network, however, I dont recall asking windows to do this, so is this "by design" and is there a way to turn it off so that only the roaming profile / redirected folders does it, and not every file on a share that the user connects with?

 

To note, I did try using the GPO setting "Prohibit 'Make Availabe Offline' for these files and folders" and removing the CSC etc etc, which after sorting out the users' profile, didnt seem to have the files re-cache, and I was hoping that this would help prevent it from happening but no dice unfortunately

 

As the description of that GP setting shows, it seems very much a GUI / prevent users from manually choosing to do it etc.

 

Cant seem to find any [obvious] setting to prevent windows from doing this.... just wondered if anyone has any ideas on this as this obviously is pretty rubbish and delaying me from finalising our new deployment of win7 etc, along with the few users that are piloting it at the moment.

 

Many thanks for anyone that can help with this one or has ideas on it

 

Nath.

[SYNACK]

Have you tried adding the folders in question into the restrict offline cacheing option in group policy and turning off the automaticly cache files bit in GP. There is also an option in the share configuration on the server that turns off offline cacheing which may help.

[tarquel]

Hi mate

 

Sorry, I probably wasnt clear in the first post, but basically we want it as it is for the redirected folders and roaming profile as that works a treat, but we dont want it to cache files from other network shares - of which, there is potentially A LOT of location, from NAS Storage systems to shares off servers etc.

 

Cant seem to find the "restrict offline caching" or the autonatucally cache files options in GP that you mention although with the latter, if that turns off the caching of roaming profiles and caching redirected folders, that would kind of default the point of setting up the profiles in this way, but if you can point me to the locations of where they are in GP, that would be great

 

I'm not certain that we could turn off the storage server side that allows or disallows offline caching on each storage system, as that could potentially cause a few problems for the existing XP clients out there.

 

It seems to me that what is happening is exactly like this old XP article:

 

Office Documents Are Synchronized to an Offline Share Automatically

 

I'm off work at the moment, but i wonder whether configuring that reg key via GPP might solve the problem, as it does seem to be office related files that seem to get cached.

 

Shame I cant seem to find the setting in GP, although perhaps it'll be there in the Office GP template settings somewhere....

 

Cheers

Nath

[SYNACK]

The policy I was thinking of was here Disable offline files for redirected folders | Offline Files and Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 Tips but it may have been depreciated in Vista/7 as the default behaviour is to not cache. Personally I set it up to specify the locations that I want cached in the administratively assigned offline files bit under user config then prevent user configuration of it which prevents user error. I add a disable offline files to the workstation policy so that the per user settings for staff are not applied. If you do admin offline files for user shares in the computer config it can cause issues as it tries to sync them for every user that logs on not just the specific one.

[Bestbett]

Not sure if it would work for you but I tried turning off all those GPO settings as well as making the Share itself unaavailable for Offline files (which is in the Share Management snapin) and it didn't prevent my issue. I had a problem with the my documents folder redirect changing the name of all my students shares to My Documents.

 

What I finally ended up doing that worked was to install FSRM and make a filter screen for the share blocking any ini files to the share, worked great maybe not the cleanest solution but it works.

[tarquel]

little update....

 

Its extremely random as to what happens for users' machines that have the exact same settings.

 

I'm gonna raise a MS incident regarding it as im going around in circles with it tbh.

 

I'll update this at some point when i have the answers i seek

 

Cheers

[robbie_1000]

Hi Nathan,

 

We had a similar problem, after we enabled the Offline Files service for BranchCache (we've several sites over ADSL links).

 

Instead of locally caching just requested files, we found Offline Files tried to sync the home drive of every user who logged on...

 

The quick fix to completely disable Offline Files was to set both the (Client Side Caching) CSC service & CSC driver to 'Disabled'.

 

;========================================

; Disable Offline Files (CSC driver + CSCService)

;========================================

; Disable Offline Files Driver - CSC

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\CSC]

"Start"=dword:00000004

 

; Disable Offline Files Service - CSCService

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\CscService]

"Start"=dword:00000004

 

 

Before you disable the service, you might also want to look at clearing the Offline Files cache (C:\Windows\CSC\ folder) otherwise it will use up a bit of disk space.

 

Set this key, then reboot. The FormatDatabase key is deleted & the cache should be emptied.

 

;- Requires Offline Files is enabled (otherwise the key doesn't get deleted) and then requires a reboot.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\CSC\Parameters]

"FormatDatabase"=dword:00000001

 

Good luck!

 

Rob

[beaum]

We're seeing a similar issue. I'm not sure if the save is saving it to a local cache though. How would I tell? Our scenario:

 

Randomly, Word 2010 will fail to save a document and the only thing left behind is a .tmp file with the last version of the document. All of the user's changes since the last save will not be there. The problem is very random though. Our machines are HP desktops or Lenovo laptops running Win7 x64 with Office 2010 x86. ESET is our AV. Our filers are Windows Server 2003 with the actual storage medium being NetApp SANs. We thought it was related to Win7 kb980232 hotfix, alas we've been able to recreate the problem with a clean install of Windows 7 x64 and Office 2010 x86 with no hotfixes and no add-ins installed. If there is interest, I can post the Word macro that we are using to recreate the problem.

[SYNACK]

We're seeing a similar issue. I'm not sure if the save is saving it to a local cache though. How would I tell? Our scenario:

ESET is our AV.

 

Have you tried disabling eset temporarily to see if it is the issue, I have had issues with it inpolightly locking files for too long in W7x64 causing all sorts of issues.

[beaum]

Have you tried disabling eset temporarily to see if it is the issue, I have had issues with it inpolightly locking files for too long in W7x64 causing all sorts of issues.

We've been able to recreate the problem without Eset being installed on the client.

[beaum]

Hi Nathan,

 

We had a similar problem, after we enabled the Offline Files service for BranchCache (we've several sites over ADSL links).

 

Instead of locally caching just requested files, we found Offline Files tried to sync the home drive of every user who logged on...

 

Rob

 

How could you tell that Offline Files was trying to sync the home drive of every user?

 

Thanks

[robbie_1000]

How could you tell that Offline Files was trying to sync the home drive of every user?

 

It actually was synching home drives - look in Sync Center, and you can see the files that are available offline (i.e. copied down to the local PC).

If you give yourself permissions to access C:\Windows\CSC\v2.0.6\ you can also see the file share structure, and files it's copied.

 

With regards my earlier post, I'm now wondering if our 2008 non-R2 file servers were part of the problem - when creating a share in Windows 2008 R2, there is an extra option under Offline Settings relating to BranchCache.

[OverWorked]

I'm having the same problem. The user saves a Word 2003 document in Windows 7. It appears to them to save correctly with the .doc file in the share. They then go to an XP machine and see only a .tmp file instead of the .doc. The .doc file has been cached locally on the Win 7 machine, while the share contains just the .tmp file.

 

The user can manually sync the file by accessing the offline files tab in the documents properties and pressing sync. (This still leaves the .tmp in the share, though).

 

Several users need the share offline, so I can't disable offline files. I have set the share as an administratively managed offline files folder in GP. Maybe this is relevant - it is a share used by several users.

 

This is the only share with this behaviour - the user's redirected home folder does not have this problem.

 

The share is on Server 2003. Does anyone have this problem if the share is on Server 2008 R2?

[beaum]

We worked with MSFT on this issue and have come to a resolution. They issued a new private hotfix for us and others. The hotfix file is named:

Windows6.1-KB2434932-v2-x64.msu

 

Digital signature date/time stamp is:

12/07/10 11:25:55 AM

 

Note this is not the same hotfix that is available for download when you search on the KB article in the file name.

 

We tested 2.5 million saves from Word 2010 with only one failure across 10 machines. This is acceptable to us.

 

Edit: I can confirm that this is a problem with Client Side Caching (CSC).

[OverWorked]

That's brilliant. If the v2 file is not on the KB article (I tried that hotfix weeks ago), how do we get it?

 

I have only one machine running Win 7 that the user uses. I'm willing to try it.

[beaum]

You'll have to call MSFT and open a support ticket and request it. They should do this for free.

[OverWorked]

I've just been back to the KB. The "v2" patch files are now on the KB2434932 article for download (datestamped 02/02/11). The download page also indicates that they're in SP1.

 

Windows6.1-KB2434932-v2-x86.msu

Windows6.1-KB2434932-v2-x64.msu

 

I've installed the patch and will ask the user to monitor for reoccurrance.

 

Thanks again.

[tarquel]

Sorry guys.

 

I should have updated my findings. Also worked with Microsoft Support Services and got the same fix too I believe.

 

As i'm sure you've all fathomed by now, but its updated CSC / Sync Center components that are included in SP1 for Win7.

 

We found this hotfix (also combining this with a custom ADM that turns off Sparsely Caching for selective file extensions) to work out for the interim, but for the time being have just disabled offline files for all the network storage servers that arent host to offline files.

 

The custom ADM in question, in case you were wondering, is:

 

CLASS MACHINE

CATEGORY "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache"
KEYNAME "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache"

POLICY "SparseExclusionList"
 PART "SparseExclusionList"
 EDITTEXT
 DEFAULT "*.doc;*.xls;*.ppt;*.vsd;*.tmp;*.pps;*.msi;*.mst;*.dot;*.opt;*.mpp;*.dts;*.vsmacros;*.mso;*.suo;*.msg;*.est;"
 VALUENAME "SparseExclusionList"
 END PART
END POLICY

END CATEGORY

 

and, oddly, by setting it, you have to include all the extensions you want to continue to use sparsely caching, and remove the extensions you dont want.

 

Ensure you test it out fully on a test machine / OU / GPO first if your going to try it to make sure its what your after as Im not sure [yet] what issues it might cause you, depending on your situation and what you want.

 

Regards

Nath

[OverWorked]

Just to update. Since applying the patch I've had no reported incidents on that machine. I have had the problem on another Win7 machine that I didnt patch.

 

Anyway SP1 should be on WSUS soon - probably March's patch Tuesday.

[OverWorked]

Update again.

 

The problem is still happening. I've manually applied the KB2434932 v2 patch, and deployed Win7 SP1 via WSUS.

 

I can replicate the problem:-

 

1) Create a Word doc on an XP machine.

2) save doc and log off

3) Log on to Windows 7 machine

4) Open the doc and edit it. Save it. Close Word.

5) On Windows 7 machine Windows explorer, the doc will appear in the share, no indication of a problem.

6) Go to another machine or the server, try to open the doc, but it's not there. All you see is a .tmp file.

 

The .doc file is in the CSC cache on the Windows 7 machine. Word or Windows 7 has saved the .tmp file to the share, but the .doc just stays in the local cache.

 

This should not be happening. I am at a complete loss with this, especially as everyone else seems to have this fixed.

 

I'm going to try moving the share to a Server 2008 R2, and upgrading Office to 2010.

[OverWorked]

I replaced my Server 2003 file server wiith Server 2008 R2, about a week after that last post, and it is all working now.

 

I haven't received any complaints of lost files since upgrading. It looks like the Server has to be 2008 (possibly R2).

[ChrisH]

I have the same issue at the moment, I just haven't got round to the 2008 file server but will in summer as this problem is only effecting the one laptop user.