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A reader's hint about offline files

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Brian Davidson kindly sent in the following note on how he fixed his problem with offline files settings resetting themselves after a reboot:

I've been struggling with this issue for awhile and I noticed you had a post about it with other users responding having had the same issue. Nothing I've seen anywhere solved the issue. What I discovered that fixed the problem was that even when the Welcome Screen was turned off, Fast User Switching was still being seen as on for whatever reason. The fix: make sure no other clients or login replacements are turned on, goto the User Administration screen, turn on Use Welcome Screen, then uncheck Use fast user switching, then turn off Use Welcome Screen. Apply changes, enable Offline files and apply, reboot and it should stay checked. You should then be able to reinstall any clients (Novell for example) that you were using before. Hope this helps.

Update: In the comments below, Joyce Hettenbach found an additional step that might be needed. This has also solved things for at least two other readers of this blog.

Finally, I found the answer to the problem. This hint sent me in the right direction. Even though the Welcome Screen and Fast User switching were OFF/DISABLED the all important registry key had not been changed. The following key was still set to "1" when I changed it to "0" offline files stopped unchecking itself after every reboot.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]
"AllowMultipleTSSessions"=dword:00000000
Don't ask me why turning off the Welcome Screen and Fast User Switching was not setting this key to "0", but that is exactly what the problem was. Could it be some bug in the Fast User switching interface? When the box is unchecked in the GUI this key does not appear to get changed...

Edit: I've turned off comments on this thread - if you have a question, please go here instead.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2005
    Hello there,
    I have been struggling with this same issue, and figured I would give you yet another account of this to forward on ;-). Perhaps by submitting this info someone can find a similarity that causes the problem (third party software?)

    My System...
    Dell Inspiron 1100 Laptop
    Windows XP SP2 All Updates Installed
    One user, Administrator group, not including actual "Administrator" login
    Programs: Office XP, pcAnywhere, Cisco VPN Client, Windows Support Tools (hehe), Norton AV Corporate, Adobe Reader 6.02, FireWorks & Homesite, MSN Messenger 7.0 (I know these seem like they wouldn't do anything, but u never know?)
    Network: Domain present, computer not associated, account exists on controller, local acct name & pass match that on controller.

    I have verified all steps listed in the thread "Why does "Enable offline files" uncheck itself after a reboot?", and other threads on your blog and elsewhere.

    Some things that I have tried (not neccesarilly in this order)...
    Uninstalled VPN software (cisco)
    Uninstalled pcAnywhere
    Removed mapped drives
    Increased Allocated diskspace for offline files
    Added FormatDatabase to reg key
    Steps listed above
    Reinstalled SP2
    Checked local policy
    Moved files from network to local & moved to network, re-synchronized
    Logged in AS Administrator, enabled offline files
    Manually created Reg key Enabled in HKLMSOFTWAREPoliciesMsWinNetcache
    Added my username to Domain administrators (on controller)
    Talked to Dell support
    Talked to MS support
    Disabled auto. synchronization
    Disabled Terminal Services service
    ...

    I have tried more than that, but thats all I can bring to mind right now. As you can see, some of the steps were pure desparation, trying anything. In that light I would be happy to try about anything suggested at this point short of reinstall. This was working on this computer before the HDD failed. Got new HD, installed everything, and now Enable Offline Files unchecks itself. This has been going on for half a year now, and when I am connecting to my work from home, its pretty slow so offline files would be really nice.

    At any rate, looks like I am just babbling now, look forward to reading reply.
    Dylan.
  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    January 28, 2005
    Guys (Dylan and Joyce) you have fixed it - many thanks.

    My offline files was subject to the 'unchecked after restart' problem and I can confirm that, on my Win XP SP2 laptop, the posted fix by Dylan worked and the registry key cited by Joyce is the key (he he) to the problem.

    Once again many thanks this was a real irritant.
  • Anonymous
    January 30, 2005
    Wow - way to go guys! Nice bit of detective work and now you're helping each other out :-) I'll forward Joyce's fix to the offline files team. Hopefully it'll work for other users as well!
  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2005
    Wow, thanks that fixed up my problem too.
    Thanks Joyce.
  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2005
    Hi

    I'm having a different problem with offline files.

    I know this isn't really a support forum! But I'm hoping somebody who is tracking this thread can maybe point me in the direction of a place that can help, or (even better) give me some hints on what might be wrong.

    My problem is that the Make Available Offline button is available, but has no effect. I right click a network file, choose Make Available Offline, but the little tick doesn't appear, the file's icon doesn't change, and the file remains on the network only. No error messages are displayed, it just doesn't do anything!

    Any suggestions very gratefully received...!

    Thanks

    Ben
  • Anonymous
    December 22, 2005
    Hi Ben,

    I've had the same problem in the past, can't remember exactly how I solved it but I know that I did :)

    Before I go on to the messy suggestion, I would check is whether the share on the server allows files to be made offline (I suspect this will be fine actually).

    What I think I had to do was reset the offline files cache and start again on the computer. There are full instructions on the knowledgebase on how do to this, but basically you need to go to Folder Options -> Offline files, and then click the button to delete your offline files while holding down Ctrl+Shift.

    Once that's done your offline cache is completely reset, restart your computer and you should be able to start making items available offline again.

    Ross
  • Anonymous
    February 27, 2006
    Hi Ross,

    I have that same issue, "Make Available Offline button is available, but has no effect", and I have tried your suggestion. But it still does nothing...

    I have also everything in this thread.

    Any other suggestions?

    Thanks in advance
    Cindy