Hi. I scheduled a weekly system image backup. There's an issue with offline files, because the system image includes offline files cache, wasting hundreds of GBs. Is it possible to exclude the cache? Bye!

Hi, It is impossible. But if you will use incremental backups, than you will have those files stored only once. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees, and confers no rights. Microsoft Student Partner 2010 / 2011 / 2012 Microsoft Certified Professional | Connected Home Integrator | Consumer Sales Specialist Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Consumer Support Technician on Windows Vista Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Enterprise Support Technician on Windows Vista Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Server Administrator on Windows Server 2008 Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows 7, Configuration | Microsoft Windows Vista, Configuration Pre-Installing Windows 7 for OEMs | Windows 7 and Office 2010, Deployment | Windows Vista and Server Operating Systems, Preinstallation Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Conf | Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Conf | Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Conf Windows Server 2008 R2, Servaer Virtualization | Windows Server Virtualization, Configuration | Microsoft Lync Server 2010, Configuring Windows SBS 2011, Configuring | Windows EBS 2008, Configuration | Windows SBS 2008, Configuration Windows HPC Server 2008, Development | Windows Internals | MDOP, Configuration | SharePoint 2010, Configuration Microsoft SCOM, Configuration | Microsoft SCDPM 2007, Configuration | Microsoft SCVMM 2008, Configuration

Same issue here. I have looked into the registry, as there seems to be no other option, and found the following key. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BackupRestore If you are familiar with the registry, regedit etc, then continue reading. Otherwise, get reading up on the dangers of modifying the registry :) There are some interesting keys here. I am unable to see anything in relation to System Image though, so I suspect this is only for your incremental backups (which you can do through the GUI anyway.) I'll keep digging and let you know what I find :)Ian

Wow!! I think it will work, will try asap!!

OK. Looking at the exclusion list, it already has c:\windows\csc\*.* /s as a path to exclude (this is the location of the offline files...also known as Client Side Cache.) As this is listed in there, but the behaviour we're seeing is that the Offline Files is included in the System Image, I think it's safe to say that this only applies to the normal backup (not the image.) Spent a bit of time digging and come up with the following solution, albeit a bit of a hassle: The Windows System Image is not the usual Windows Image File format (WIM) which is used by ImageX to capture images. Instead, it is in VHD format, or Virtual Hard Disk. I believe that as we can mount the VHD as an additional hard drive (virtual) then we can browse it with Windows Explorer. As such, and I would only suggest you do this in a test environment, we can probably browse to X:\Windows\CSC and delete the files through Explorer (where X: is the letter assigned to the virtual hard disk.) There is a sweet little tip on the website below, that will allow you to mount VHD files as drives, do your thing, then unmount them again. http://www.howtogeek.com/51174/mount-and-unmount-a-vhd-file-in-windows-explorer-via-a-right-click/ The next website, explains how to shrink the VHD file, so that you free up space where the image is stored: http://www.howtogeek.com/50399/how-to-resize-a-microsoft-virtual-hard-drive-vhd-file/ I'm going to try this process out tomorrow. I expect that as this is a very rare process (to capture a System Image) that this isn't too painful for making a relatively small image. Ian

Microsoft, if you can include this in the next Service Pack / Feature Pack or a hotfix, to allow us to exclude some folders with the Windows System Image (like we can with the Image X tool,) this would make the already pretty good Windows Backup tools a very very nice tool to work with. :)Ian

UR right again