How to schedule periodic offline file synchronization in Windows XP?
Is there any way to schedule periodic offline file synchronizatinon in Windows XP (other than at logon/logoff)? Here's what's happening: I'm using folder redirection for my user's Desktop and My Documents. If I have to take the file server down for any reason or there's a blip in the network, the user's go "offline" and need to reconnect. My problem is that 80% of the users don't realize it, and don't know how to reconnect (even though they get the little balloon reminders telling them what to do) and ultimately call me freaking out because they've "lost their files". If there's a way to do it, I would love to be able to setup a job that runs every hour or so and forces a synchronization of the user's files (but to first reconnect to the network if necessary). I just can't figure out where to do it. Can this be run from the command line? Thanks.
April 27th, 2010 4:52pm

Anybody...? Anything...? Maybe I'm using this the wrong way...?
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May 17th, 2010 4:19pm

What about something like this? Anything for Windows itself...? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291204
June 8th, 2010 4:51am

Ok, I think I found it here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811660/en-usLooks like this is as good as it gets, I'm going to give this a try. The note at the bottome doesn't look very promising...Forced silent auto reconnectionWhen a server has been unavailable (offline mode) and then becomes available again for connection, Offline Files Client Side Caching tries to transition that server to online mode if all the following conditions are true:There are no offline changes for that server on the local computer. There are no open file handles for that server on the local computer. The server is accessed over a “fast” link. You can adjust the definition of “slow” and “fast” by using theSlowLinkSpeed Offline Files policy. With this hotfix, you can configure Offline Files Client Side Caching to ignore these conditions and transition the server to online mode regardless of whether these conditions exist. To do this, follow these steps:Click Start, click Run, type REGEDIT, and then clickOK. Locate and click the following registry subkey:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCacheClick Edit, point to New, and then click DWORD Value. Type SilentForcedAutoReconnect, and then press ENTER to name the value.Double-click SilentForcedAutoReconnect. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK. Note After you apply this hotfix, the following behavior may occur:Any offline changes will remain unsynchronized and unavailable until the changes are synchronized in the future. This situation causes a dirty cache condition that is announced through a small warning overlay image on the Offline Files icon in the notification area. Any open handles to files that are cached on the associated server will be automatically closed and invalidated. This action may cause problems if the programs that are using those files cannot work gracefully with invalid file handles.If the server is available over a slow network link, such as a satellite link or a telephone line, the server will still be transitioned online. This scenario may cause very slow access to the remote file system on the server from the local computer.
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June 8th, 2010 5:15am

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