OneNote cache problems with roaming profiles

Question

Hello,

we're trying to use OneNote 2013 in our Remotedesktop/Xenapp 7.9 environment on Windows Server 2012 R2.

Our problem is, that the OneNote cache is rebuilt at every login, because we're not syncing %LocalAppData%  back to the users profile (and we even don't want to!).

I already found this post:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice\_onenote-mso\_other/how-can-i-modify-the-cache-file-location-for/72a752fb-e8be-4716-98ef-6b58f7021cb6

I managed to create a symlink within our logon script:

mklink /D c:\users%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote \networkshare%username%\OneNote

The subfolders and the OneNoteOfflineCache.onecache are successfully created on the target folder, but it fails to populate the folder "OneNoteOfflineCache_Files", which remains empty. After starting OneNote the user can't view the desired notebook, "page cannot be displayed".

Is there another step we're missing? As OneNote creates the folders, I think we're really close to the solution...

Answer 1

Hello Bernd,

thanks for your tip with ProcessMonitor.

I captured with a test user and filtered to "onenote" and the profile path "C:\Users\xenapptest\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote".

With my configured symlink I receive entries like this:

08:33:03,6466883    ONENOTE.EXE    1672    CreateFile    C:\Users\xenapptest\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\15.0\OneNoteOfflineCache_Files\d2299565-b586-47de-a01a-20b619695c5f.onebin    REPARSE    Desired Access: Read Attributes, Disposition: Open, Options: Open Reparse Point, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Write, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a, OpenResult: <unknown>

As soon as I remove the symlink, so that OneNote can write directly into this path:

08:35:22,0689621    ONENOTE.EXE    6728    CreateFile    C:\Users\xenapptest\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\15.0\OneNoteOfflineCache_Files\e4427fb6-ebb1-4770-b6f3-6bb7a87894ed.onebin    SUCCESSDesired Access: Read Attributes, Disposition: Open, Options: Open Reparse Point, Attributes: n/a, ShareMode: Read, Write, Delete, AllocationSize: n/a, OpenResult: Opened

Is it possible that this is a permission issue? But the user does have "write"-permissions to the symlink and the target folders... Or do you have an idea?

Answer 2

Hello Bernd,

thanks for that link, that seems to hit my problem exactly.

Unfortunately "mklink /J" fails, because I'm trying to link to a network share. I even combined it with "subst" to map the network share to a local drive letter, but still no success.

Is this really possible, that Microsoft doesn't have a solution for remotedesktop/terminalserver-users who want to use OneNote? This has to be a wide-spread problem, I can't imagine any company syncing their users OneNote caches to profile, as that would mean extremely increasing logon/logoff times.

Kind regards

Manfred

Answer 3

I'm not an mklink expert so I don't know whether /D (or /J ?) is the right option.

I remember a comparable case which didn't found a happy end:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_onenote-mso_windows8/method-for-complete-storage-of-onenote-notebooks/e7cb5068-10eb-4e63-b8ca-87e62e8a3459

Bernd

Answer 4

I'd use the well known ProcessMonitor from Sysinternals (now MS) to look at the file access of Onenote (Filter "Process Name begins with onenote") during backup.

http://live.sysinternals.com/Procmon.exe

Bernd