Administratively assigned offline files on Win7 client disappear from server
My machine is running Windows 7 Ultimate (I've seen the issue on Business as well), on a Windows Server 2003 domain. The OU it is in has a group policy enforced on it that sets: Computer Configuration (Enabled) - Allow or Disallow use of Offline Files feature: Enabled - Subfolders always available offline: Enabled User Configuration (Disabled) My username is in an OU that has another Group Policy Object enforced, with the following settings: Computer Configuration (Disabled) User Configuration (Enabled) - Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\NetCache\AssignedOfflineFolders\\\[domain]\projects\office(note I replaced the name of my domain with [domain] in the above string) ...and several other folders such as \\[domain]\projects\detail, \\[domain]\projects\projects When I first installed Windows 7, I pre-created the computer account in the correct OU, then joined it to the domain with no issues. Upon restarting, other policies had indeed already taken effect (for instance, not requiring Ctrl+Alt+Del to login), but though I waited several days and even clicked the "Sync All" button a few times in the Sync Center, the offline files never showed up as available offline. Finally, I went into the local policy settings (gpedit.msc) and set the folders I wanted to be always available offline in user configuration\Administrative Templates\Network\Offline Files under "Administratively Assigned Offline Files". After a gpupdate and reboot, I saw the offline files get cached. After a few days however, I noticed some bad behavior in the offline files even though I'd never actually taken the computer offline from the network; some files I would open (usually AutoCAD files) would be deleted from the server, but I didn't know it, because the offline files would still show up in the directory on my machine. Syncing all files or just that folder did not restore the files to the server. Checking the file properties for those files under the Offline Files tab show that they are being made available to me in offline mode. Sync center (when I check it) reports a conflict on those files that they were changed on my computer and deleted from the server. Choosing to resolve the conflict by keeping the file and copying it to the "other location" does not restore the file to the server, and it remains in offline mode on my machine. I have to copy-n-paste the files from the mapped DFS share to the UNC path to the share to get the files back onto the server, then resync my machine to get the files to show as being online again. Which only lasts until I modify the files again, then they're deleted from the server and only offline on my machine again. When I saw that happen, I changed my local policy settings back to "not configured" for the offline files, wiped out my offline files database and rebooted, assuming that the files would go back to only being online, and not available offline. However, it seems once offline files started working, they kept working, because the files were cached for offline use again (finally obeying the domain policy). Thinking that possably the two identical policies were conflicting somehow, I left it that way for a few days before finding the same issue was happening again. Another side effect I notice is a large number of temp files named "sav" followed by 3-4 hex digits (0-F) and a ".tmp" extension. These files only show up in the folders where drawings have disappeared from the server, and I can only see them from my machine if I use the UNC path. The mapped DFS share (which shows me the offline files that don't exist on the server), does NOT show me those tmp files. I saw this issue during the Beta and RC phases of Windows 7, but wrote it off as a pre-release bug (and reported it). The fact that it's still around however, is forcing me to put my computer into an OU without offline files and do without that feature entirely! I'm trying to find out if this is any kind of a known issue or if anyone has seen it before - searching online didn't turn up any related issues that I could see. I'm willing to try things if someone has any ideas as to what could cause it, but that's a slow troubleshooting process since sometimes it takes a couple of days to cause issues again. Thanks for your patience in reading through all this, and any assistance you can give! Let me know if I need to clarify anything- I've tried to be as detailed as possible regarding my setup and symptoms to assist in running down the issue.
March 24th, 2010 12:52am

Same problem here. Windows 7 x64 and SBS 2003. On XP workstations everything worked just fine. Did you find any solution? Thanks.
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August 16th, 2010 6:33pm

Same problem here. Also seems to be an AutoCAD problem. We have one (1) Windows 7 x32 machine which causes the problem - all of our XP machines are fine. Has there been a solution? Thanks.
September 21st, 2010 9:38am

We just recently started migrating to Windows 7 (forced to by new hardware), and I'm slowly starting to see something very similar to this. I am now up to users having experienced this problem. They don't appear to have any of the problems mentioned with synchronization, but they are having files mysteriously disappear from both their offline cache and the server! Which is really bad when one of them, a regional manager, had a PowerPoint presentation vanish after having worked on it all day. My users are beginning to lose faith in my department with regard to protecting their data. If anyone has figured out the problem/solution, please let me know as soon as possible.
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February 23rd, 2011 2:18pm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2434932 resolves the problem with files being replaced with .TMP files. You should also be resolve the conflicts from the machine that has the file cached. Installing SP1 also fixes as this patch is rolled into it.
March 9th, 2011 4:58am

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