Hello, sorry if this question is very basic, but i cannot find the big picture answer for a standard Win Server 2008 with win7 clients: What is the best practise when say multiple users download copies of documents / spreadsheets offline then go home and make changes. If 3 people change the same offline copy of a spreadsheet and come back next morning. If we assume they are not aware of each others activities and 1 person makes crucial changes. How do we prevent file synchronization wiping out the crucial changes if the other 2 people have made trivial changes. When connected in the office users will get a "read only" warning so they are aware of it. But at home and offline they will not be aware. There must be a simple procedure to prevent this. Thanks you very much for your assistance -gregoire

Hello, if they use a file from the same location the latest version will be used to update the older version. In your case Sharepoint is a way to use so multiple users can work on the same document stored on the same location, without copying to the local harddisk.Best regards Meinolf Weber MVP, MCP, MCTS Microsoft MVP - Directory Services My Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/mweber/ Disclaimer: This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

Hello, if they use a file from the same location the latest version will be used to update the older version. In your case Sharepoint is a way to use so multiple users can work on the same document stored on the same location, without copying to the local harddisk.Best regards Meinolf Weber MVP, MCP, MCTS Microsoft MVP - Directory Services My Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/mweber/ Disclaimer: This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

Meinolf, thanks old chap, that answers my question. I worked in a large multi-national petroleum company a few years ago on the same floor as a sharepoint team. I just thought they were just implementing a way to publish html files on a web server so i was a bit judgemental & thought it was a big waste of time. [being a unix engineer we can be a bit biased ! ] But i see the relevance and need now for such software. thanks again -gregoire