10-71LESSON 6 CONFIGURING OFFLINE FOLDERS AND FILES■ THE USER DOES NOT HAVE ANY FILES CURRENTLY OPEN FROM THAT NETWORK SHARE

10-71Lesson 6 Configuring Offline Folders and Files■

The user does not have any files currently open from that network share.

■

Synchronization is not required for any offline files in the share.

■

The user is not connecting to the network over a slow link.

If any of these conditions are not met, the user will continue to work with the offline

version of the share until all files are closed and synchronization occurs.

Note Users have the same permissions to the locally stored versions of offline files as they

do to the original network versions.

How to Configure Your Computer to Share Offline Folders and Files

Before other users on the network can use shared folders and files on your computer

offline, you must configure the resource to allow caching for offline use. You configure

offline folders and files through Windows Explorer or My Computer. Figure 10-27

shows the Allow Caching Of Files In This Shared Folder check box in Windows

Explorer.

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Figure 10-27

Configure shared files for offline use.

Windows XP Professional provides the following three settings for caching:

Manual Caching Of Documents The default setting. Users must manually specify

any files that they want available when they are working offline. To ensure proper

file sharing, the server version of the file is always open.

Automatic Caching Of Documents Every file a user opens is automatically down-

loaded and cached on the user’s hard drive so that it will be available offline. If an

earlier version of a file is already loaded on the user’s hard drive, it is automatically

replaced with the newer version. To ensure proper file sharing, the server version

of the file is always opened.

Automatic Caching Of Programs and Documents Opened files are automatically

downloaded and cached on the user’s hard drive so that they will be available

offline. If an earlier version of a file is already loaded on the user’s hard drive, it

is automatically replaced with the newer version. File sharing is not ensured.

How to Synchronize Offline Folders and Files

By default, synchronization of offline files is configured to happen at logoff when

offline files are initially made available on the client. File synchronization is straightfor-

ward if the copy of the file on the network does not change while you are editing a

cached version of the file. Your edits are incorporated into the copy on the network.

However, it is possible that another user could edit the network version of the file

while you are working offline. If both your cached offline copy of the file and the net-

work copy of the file are edited, you must decide what to do. You are given a choice

of retaining your edited version and not updating the network copy with your edits, of

overwriting your cached version with the version on the network, or of keeping a copy

of both versions of the file. In the last case, you must rename your version of the file,

and both copies will exist on your hard disk and on the network.

You can reconfigure or manually launch synchronization by using Synchronization

Manager, which is available from the Items To Synchronize dialog box. You can access

the Items To Synchronize dialog box (see Figure 10-28) in the following ways:

■

From the Start menu, select All Programs, Accessories, and then Synchronize.

■

From the Tools menu in Windows Explorer, select Synchronize.

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Figure 10-28

Choose an item to synchronize manually.