I have a problem with a windows XP machine that is connecting to a
Small Biz Server 2000 (w/ SBS SP1).   My XP machine keeps bringing up
a dialog box about Synchronizing.   Somehow the Offline folders got
turned on for My P drive and even though it is empty, it keeps
checking it to see if it needs to sync.

My P drive is actually a share on the server.   I have my My Documents
folder mapped to “P:”.  So My documents is effectively a share on the
server.

Everytime I put anything into it, even a new document, it gets that
little logo (2 blue arrows in a circle that are pointing at each
other, like the symbol for recycling) that means that it thinks it
needs to make this available offline.   When I look at the P share
under My Computer, the whole share has that symbol on it.

When I right click on it and try to uncheck the “Make Available
Offline”, it won’t let me.   It is grayed out.  It is checked, but
still grayed out.

When I copy a document into it, even a new document, it gets that
little logo on the document’s icon.  When I right click on the
document, and try to uncheck the “Make Available Offline”, I can’t
because it also is grayed out.

I want to get my P drive (my share) back to normal.  

I tried wiping out the share, and making a new one.  That didn’t work.
 I rebooted the server and the XP machine several times each, and that
didn’t work.

I disconnected the P map, created a new folder on the server, shared
that folder, and remapped P to the new folder, and that worked (until
I rebooted the machine, then it went back to the recycle logo).

I tried making another share, mapping the new share to the letter I,
and then rebooting.   This worked until I remapped my “My Documents”
folder to it.  Then it would get the logo again (after the first
reboot).  I tried changing the drive letter, but whatever letter I
assign my My Documents folder to it goes the logo.

I have had to disable my offline folders entirely, which is a problem
because there actually a small folder that I want to have synced.  I
want to put that small folder in the P drive, among plenty of
non-synced folders.

I am trying to figure out why this is happening and how to prevent it
in the future.   I am using a roaming profile.  Could my roaming
profile have gotten some kind of corruption?

I spent a lot of time creating this profile, and getting it just
right.  When I add new users tomorrow, I plan to duplicate this
profile to avoid doing those many hours of work again.  My testing is
showing that the problem gets duplicated also.  I really need to solve
this mystery so future profiles are problem free.

Help!

Greetings sherpaj,

I'd like to help you to solve your synchronization problem with
Windows XP and the SBS Server. I understand the problem you are having
and have searched through the knowledgebase within Microsoft's Technet
resources. I came up with the following article which I believe
describes your problem exactly:

"Symptoms:
If you are using Offline Files, you cannot choose to synchronize only
the current folder but not the subfolders (this corresponds to the No,
make only this folder available offline option in the Confirm Offline
Subfolders dialog box) if you have redirected your My Documents folder
to a network location. No matter which option you use, the subfolders
are made available offline."

This is basically saying that if you have your My Documents folder
redirected to a network share (and setup to be used Offline),
everything else in that folder (and subfolders) will also be made
available offline and you have no control to change it. To me, this is
your problem in a nutshell. Especially since you described creating an
entirely new share and it working fine until you mapped your My
Documents folder back over to it.

According to this article, the resolution to this problem is only
available as a hotfix from Microsoft. For QA reasons, they don't offer
a link directly to download it, you must contact them in order to
receive it. You will most likely have to open a call with them, then
they will comp the call once they know that all you want is a hotfix
and that no troubleshooting is involved. I've had to do this many
times - just tell them up front that all you want is the hotfix and
that there will be no troubleshooting so the call will be free of
charge.

Another option may be to install Windows XP Service Pack 1. This
article was written prior to the SP1 release, so it's possible that
this hotfix made it into the service pack. There's no guarantee of
that however as Microsoft hasn't updated this specific article to
reflect such and they're usually pretty good about that. The hotfix
may also contain instructions that need to be followed after applying
the hotfix in order to get your folders returned to normal if it
doesn't happen automatically with the fix.

The full text from the article can be found here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q314918&

Windows XP Service Pack 1 can be downloaded here:
http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/pro/downloads/servicepacks/sp1/default.asp

You will need to install this fix on all XP machines in your
environment, especially those you are duping the same profile to.

If after obtaining the hotfix you still have the same problem, please
don't hesitate to "ask for clarification" and I'll be happy to assist
you further and look for an alternate solution. Thanks!

Sincerely,
PWizard

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Request for Answer Clarification by sherpaj-ga on 27 Oct 2002 21:51 PST

I am running SP1 for XP.    Always have been.   

Just to clarify....
I have my My Documents folder redirected to a network share, but NOT
setup to be used Offline.

I do NOT want it to be used offline, ever.   II would like a
sub-folder indide of that share to be able to be used offline, but at
this point I would happily forget about that to be rid of this
problem!

i tried to disallow offline folders on the share itself (on the
server).  I saw the checkbox in a section that you can get to from the
dialog box for "Sharing...." that is used when defining a share.  
That didn't work.

I also tried disallowing offline folders in the folder that holds all
the profiles.  That didn't work either.

---

Clarification of Answer by pwizard-ga on 28 Oct 2002 07:05 PST

I apologize, let me re-phrase the answer:

If you have a network share where any file or folder is setup to be
available "Offline" and you then re-direct your "My Documents" folder
to somewhere on this network share, it automatically makes the entire
contents (all files/subdirectories) available Offline and will thus
synchronize when anything is moved to it. This is the bug that is
corrected by the hotfix available from Microsoft. Microsoft did not
specify whether or not this fix was incorporated into Service Pack 1.
They usually update their articles to state that it was, which they
did not in this case. This leads me to believe that the fix is NOT in
the service pack. One way to check is to search for a file on your
Windows XP machine (with the problem) called "cscui.dll". It may be a
hidden file. Once you find the file, go to properties then click on
the version tab. This file should be version 5.1.2600.27 or LATER with
a date of 13-Jan-2002 or LATER. If the file you have is earlier in
version and/or date, you still require the hotfix from Microsoft shown
in the article mentioned above. As you mentioned in your question, you
would like to make a sub-directory of your network share available
offline, but not the entire share. Obtaining this fix may be the only
way to do that if you plan to continue re-directing your "My
Documents" folder to the share.

Another option is to stop the re-directing of your My Documents folder
to the network share. See if this clears up the problem. You might
could also try setting up a new share that will only be used for the
re-direction of your My Documents folder. However, Microsoft doesn't
make mention to whether this would make the problem re-appear or not.

In your clarification you said that you would be ok with disabling
offline files entirely to be rid of this problem. I found another
article at technet that describes the process for enabling and
disabling the use of offline files on Windows XP. That article is
available here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q307853&

Offline file use is usually determined on the end PC, things such as
how caching is used for offline files is determined on the server
share itself. You can also setup group policies to handle offline
files if you want to do it globally for all your users.

Please let me know if this helps to clear up the problem. I'm happy to
assist further if more research is necessary. Thanks!

-PWizard

---

Request for Answer Clarification by sherpaj-ga on 29 Oct 2002 21:07 PST

I check my version # of my cscui.dll.  it is 5.1.2600.1106. with a
modifiied dated of Thursday, August 29, 2002 (created in Oct 02). 
I'll try the server side disabling again.

---

Clarification of Answer by pwizard-ga on 30 Oct 2002 05:12 PST

It sounds like you have the updated version of this file. They must
have included it in Service Pack 1. That's good. If you can answer the
following three questions for me, I think we can determine a final
course of action for your problem:

1. Does de-activating the redirection of your "My Documents" folder to
a network share fix the problem?

2. Create a new share on the server. Leaving your original drive
letter mapped on the client, map a new drive letter to this new
network share. Redirect your "My Documents" folder to this new share
instead of the old one. Does the problem still occur on the OLD share?

3. Does disabling Offline Files completely on the CLIENT fix the
problem?

Refer to this article for disabling Offline Files on the client:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q307853&

Thanks!

-PWizard