Setting up offline files on your computer

If you work on a company that has its own network and need to work on one of the shared files on the file server when you are not on the network (like at home or on the road) windows has a nice option to accomplish this need, it is called “Offline Files” what it does is, when you leave your company network, it cache the shared files on your local computer, so you will be able to work on them off the network, and when you return to the network, they get synched with the original shared files on the network and any file you modified will be updated.

In order to enable “offline files” your computer needs to be part of a network, or be joined to a domain. Then open My Documents and to go tools, folder options, and go to Properties, click on the “offline files” tab and choose the following options:

Enable offline folders > checked
Synchronize all offline files when login on > checked (if you are using wireless to access the network, you better leave this unchecked, because the network will be found after you establish the wireless connection)
Synchronize all offline files before logging off > checked
Display a Reminder every > select how many minutes you want the reminder popping up to remind you to synch, the default is 60 minutes.
Leave the rest as default and click on apply and then OK. Your settings should look like the image below:

After you have setup the computer for offline files support, you will need to navigate to the files you need to enable offline, which are normally on a network server, for example \\yourfileserver\sharedfiles once you get to the files, right click the folder and choose “make available offline” follow the wizard, and choose to “automatically synchronize the offline files when I log on or log off the computer” click next. On the following screen enable reminders if you want, and choose to have a shortcut on your desktop.

When you click Finish, the synchronization process should start, and depending on the size of the folder, it should take equivalent time to finish the process. Now your files you be available on the network or at your home.