Configuring offline files windows 7

Transparent Caching optimizes bandwidth consumption on WAN links and provides near local read response times for mobile users and branch office workers that are accessing network files and folders that are not explicitly made available offline. The greatest benefits of Transparent Caching are realized when BranchCache is deployed.

BranchCache is designed to reduce WAN link utilization and improve application responsiveness for branch office workers who access content from servers in remote locations.

Prior to Windows 7, to open a file across a slow network, client computers always retrieved the file from the server, even if the client computer had recently read the file. With Windows 7 Transparent Caching, the first time a user opens a file in a shared folder, Windows 7 reads the file from the server and then stores it in the Offline Files cache on the local hard disk drive. The subsequent times that a user opens the same file, Windows 7 retrieves the cached file from the hard disk drive instead of reading it from the server.

To provide data integrity, Windows 7 always contacts the server to ensure that the cached copy is up to date. The cache is never accessed if the server is unavailable, and updates to the file are always written directly to the server. Transparent Caching is not enabled by default. IT administrators can use a Group Policy setting to enable Transparent Caching, improve the efficiency of the cache, and configure the amount of hard disk drive space that the cache uses.

This scenario presents the procedures an administrator can use to configure Offline Files settings for Windows 7 client computers by using Group Policy on a Windows Server R2 computer configured as a domain controller. The scenario shows you how to configure the settings by using the Group Policy Management Editor. It also provides an overview of deploying Folder Redirection.

Offline Files is particularly useful when folders on multiple computers are redirected to a share by using Folder Redirection. When you configure Offline Files by using Folder Redirection, the redirected files are cached on client computers so that they are available for offline use.

This guide presents step-by-step procedures for configuring the following Offline Files features:. Configure Background Sync and enable Transparent Caching when you have one or more of the following environments:. When upgrading a computer from, for example, Windows Vista to Windows 7, the entire Offline Files cache is not migrated to the new operating system.

After Windows 7 is installed, files on the server are synchronized with the cache. The entire cache is not migrated because it can potentially impact performance and disk space. The Windows 7 client computer needs to have enough disk space to accommodate both the new operating system and the Offline Files cache. When the client computer is connected to the server over a slow network, we recommend that you migrate the entire cache.

The time to synchronize the entire set of network files from the server to the client depends on the latency and bandwidth of the network as well as the size of the file set.

Use the following registry key to migrate the entire Offline Files cache and set the value of the registry key to In Windows 7 the ability to delete or rename folders that were cached by offline folders when working in the offline mode is enabled by default.

Because renaming a folder is treated like a delete and a subsequent create of the same directory structure, you may need to update the list of directory paths that the functionality can be enabled for.

The recommended way to update this setting by using the command line is to specify the value, data, and type when adding a new key. For example,. Folder Redirection enables an administrator to redirect the location of specific folders within user profiles to a new location, such as a shared network location.

If we lose network connectivity and try to open the shared folder again, we will see that the Status of the folder is Offline, but the availability is Available.

This means that we can open up the shared file and work on it while we are not connected to the network, and save all the changes. Once we connect to the network again, we the modified file will be synced with the file on the shared folder on the server. Keep in mind that if multiple users are working on the same files in the shared folder, we might encounter conflicts when syncing cached files back to the server. If someone else from modifies the same file as we have modified, we will see a conflict notification in our Sync Center.

We can choose to keep the file on our client machine, keep the file on the server, or to keep both files one file will be renamed. So, as we can see, offline files are primarily intended for personal use. If multiple users work on the same files, there is a chance of overwriting changes on files made by other users, so keep that in mind.

Click Advanced Settings to open the Advanced Settings dialog box. Then click Caching to display the Offline Settings dialog box shown. Note You can also select specific files to be cached automatically using Group Policy by enabling and configuring the Administratively Assigned Offline Files policy setting. You can create and manage scheduled synchronization by selecting the sync partnership you want to work with and then clicking Schedule.

Click Start and then click Computer. This opens the Computer console. If you scroll down in the main pane, you should see a list of mapped network drives under the Network Location heading. Create the offline file cache by doing one of the following: To copy the entire contents of a shared folder to the user's computer and make it available for offline use, under Network Location, right-click the shared location and then select Always Available Offline.