Hands on: Turn on to Offline Files

Storing documents and other files on a remote network share is all very well, but what do you do if the network goes down or you want to work on your documents while away from the Lan?

One answer is to use Offline Files, a Windows networking option that lets you keep a local copy of anything held on a network share.

Configure this and if, for any reason, you can’t access the network, the local copy of any document you want to open will be used instead.

Later, when the connection is restored, Windows will upload and synchronise any changes you make and, similarly, if the network version has been updated while you’ve been disconnected, download and apply those changes to keep the local copy in sync.

There are a few restrictions. If you’re a Windows XP Home user, for example, Offline Files isn’t an option, neither will you find it in Windows Vista Starter, Home Basic or the Home Premium edition. Windows XP Pro users will also have to disable fast user switching and explicitly enable the offline files option, but that’s not particularly difficult, and it’s a very easy option to understand and use.

Going offline with XP
The first task for XP users is to turn off fast user switching. To do this double-click User Accounts in the Control Panel and choose the option marked ‘Change the way users log on or off’. You can then enable offline files by opening the My Computer folder, choosing Folder Options from the Tools menu and clicking on the Offline Files tab.

As you can see, you can arrange for Windows to automatically synchronise any changes whenever you log on or off, the latter being the default. You can also ask for a regular taskbar reminder when you’re working offline. It’s also possible to create a desktop shortcut to the local Offline Files folder and encrypt the contents for security, although encryption is only possible on NTFS formatted disks.

The amount of local disk space required will depend on the documents and files involved, and care is needed to make sure you don’t go too mad. Opt to make a whole disk share available offline, for example, and you could end up with a PC that spends all its time synchronising changes. Fortunately Windows will stop databases and other large files that shouldn’t be made available offline from being selected, and you can limit the amount of disk space available to Offline Files using the slider shown.

Finally, there are tools to view and manage the local file copies, as the folder used (\Windows\CSC) is normally hidden. Plus there’s an Advanced button, from which it’s possible to either allow or disallow offline working when particular network connections are lost, which could be useful if you need to connect to different networks using different settings.

Going offline with Vista
On most Vista PCs you’re likely to find Offline Files enabled already, but there’s a similar management interface available from the Control Panel, usually to be found in the Network and Internet folder.

Note, too, that the Vista options are slightly different from those in XP, although the underlying mechanism is much the same. There’s a button to enable or disable the Offline Files option and another to open the Sync Center ­ a taskbar applet that lets you manage the synchronisation process.

A tab is then provided to manage disk usage, with separate limits that can be used to control not just the amount of space that can be used to hold the Offline Files copies, but also the temporary files that might be created when an offline file is opened. As with XP, the local copies can, again, be encrypted for extra security. Additionally, it’s possible to set Windows to work offline on a slow connection and ask it to check for slow connections on a regular basis.

The same \Windows\CSC folder is used to hold the offline file copies, and elevated privileges are required to open or modify this directly.