Windows 7 and Offline files STILL not working.

I too had been trying to get offline files working with Vista/W7 for a long time. After trying numerous suggestions from the forum, I opened a case with Netgear Help. Their suggestion was as follows:
"Sorry for the long delay in response. After some testing we have been able to get offline files to work. However the NAS must be in security mode "USER", and the share must allow guest access. We couldn't get it to work with any other configuration. We will ask our engineers about this issue, but there is no guarantee of a response. Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention."

Since then I have had offline files work without problem on Vista Buisness 32 and Windows 7 business 64.

One thing that I have noiticed is that it appears that as long as one of my shares allows guest access, then all shares can be set to offline.

I am using an NVX with 4.2.15.

Good luck and look forward to hearing how you go

OFFLINE FILES NOW FIXED!!

@BMach I'm afraid your suggestion didn't work. In the process of playing around though I finally found out what is causing the dreadful 'file is in use by another process' error.

I noticed that if I rebooted and tried to sync immediately then the process would be error free for a while, and then the usual errors would occur. So it occurred to me that a service must be kicking in belatedly that was causing the conflicts. It is the Windows Search (indexing) service, which by default starts automatically after a delay. Turning this off fixes the problem immediately (although having the NAS in security mode 'USER' may be essential also. It is working now and I can't be bothered to change it back again).

I sync'd over 5GB of offline files this morning, have modified and deleted some files, rebooted several times, etc, and have not had a single error (yet).

The search service does not index mapped NAS drives but by default it indexes the C:\ drive and any other internal drive. As soon as the Sync service starts shadowing NAS files and folders to the C:\ drive, the search service starts indexing them and this is the process that causes the error.

Disabling the search service is easy but a bit of a shame because it works well in Windows 7. On the plus side, removing it will speed your PC up.

If, like me, you have spent ages trying to get offline files working with your ReadyNAS then your offline files database will be in a bit of a mess. Before killing the search/indexing service I suggest that you disable offline files, delete any offline files on your C:\ drive and then reset the CSC (client side cache) database. To reset the CSC database use Regedit to create the following dword "FormatDatabase" at [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters] and give it a value of 00000001. Then reboot your machine.

To disable the search service go Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Services and locate the Windows Search service. Stop it and disable it from starting. Then go to Computer and right-click your C:\ drive. Select properties and under the General tab you need to uncheck the tickbox 'Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties' then hit OK. Your PC will probably take several minutes to process this.

Reboot, enable offline files again, and you're good to go. :D

@BMach I'd be interested to know whether you have the Windows Search service running on your machines?

I have checked and I do not have Windows Search running on the offline files. I think this is a price I am prepared to pay. My recollection however is that at some stage I had turned off Windows Search on the offline files and that alone did not get it going.

An internet search does suggest that other NAS devices have a similar problem.

I'm trying to get Offline Files to work at the moment, I've done as naughtyscamp has suggested and disabled search indexing. However I'm not sure what is meant by security mode USER and enabling guest access. Could someone please let me know how to do this as I'm getting error messages whenever I try to sync my offline files, which is disappointing to say the least.

So, this is a HUGE issue. I am an IT consultant in the Raleigh NC area. My company had been doing a lot of testing and roll-out of the ReadyNAS line for a number of years now, and we have had the luxury or working directly with the ReadyNAS technical team (which is excellent)

I love the READYNAS line and I am in the midst of moving all the shares off of the servers for a few clients and then virtualizing their servers (after the shares are moved off). All of the shares and VMs are stored on the NAS.

I have probably sold about 50 NAS units over the past year to varying customers.

Anyways, I am doing a share move this weekend for a small customer with an NVX and I am having this exact issue as well. In my case used the built-in home shares which are automatically created as users hit the NAS. I have a group policy to redirect the My Documents folder to \\NAS\%USERNAME%\My Documents.

My NAS has the latest firmware updates. I have tried all the suggestions in this thread and have had no luck. Disabling indexing in Win7 doesnt make a difference. I cleared the CSC folder and that doesnt help. I also tried disableing SMB2.0 (found in another forum) and this doesnt work.

The previous poster menas by "Enabling Guest Access" is the little check box under the CIFS properties in the share menu. (this doesnt work on this issue in of itself, BTW) Also, you cannot Enable Guest access for the home share unless you go to the Linux console of the NAS. The guest access defeats the whole purpose of the home share since it is supposed to be PRIVATE.

The previous poster also talked of enabled USER security. This is in the security section of the NAS and this is the area where you join the NAS to a domain or not. In my case, I HAVE to have the NAS joined ot the domain because the shares are security controlled by Domain-based Security Groups. Some group allow read-access to some shares, etc. So, if you put your NAS in guest access mode, then you wont be able to pull any of the domain groups/users for ACL purposes.

Netgear, this is a big issue and showstopper for many of my clients. If it is a Win 7 Problem, please give us a fix. If it is a NAS issue, please give us a fix. Here I am at a client past midnight trying to figure out what is going on. They are not going to be happy when they cant take their offline files with them when they leave the office with their laptops.

Thanks!

All,

So... I think I figured out how to make this work. Specifically, I am trying to create Private home shares on the readynas which users' My Docs (and other personal files) are redirected to and can take offline with them when they leave the office with a mobile device.
The readynas is joined ot the domain, BTW.

I read up on OPLOCKS for serveral hours and tried to understand WHY I need it for shares and where it is best applied.
After reading this article:
http://www.superbase.com/services_tech_support_oplocks.htm
I decided that since the home shares are private and only being access by one user, OPLOCKS isnt really necessary.
Since no one in this thread (or others) have tried this WITHUOT OPLOCKS, I figured its worth a shot.

I did NOT disable windows serach in win 7, or SAMBA 2, or anything funky in registry.
Most of my users have UNDER 1 GB of DATA, but I have two users with 11GB + in their MY Docs and it worked fine for all users.
As soon as I DISABLED oplocks, the error about "file being used by another process" never came back when performing a sync.

Here is my setup:

1) Log into your NAS device (for arguments sake, I'll refer to mine as NAS)
2) DONT USE THE BUILT IN HOME SHARES! (they are REALLY a nice feature, but there is no GUI control over them)
3) Create a new share with no public access, I called mine USERS
4) Go into the CIFS share properties and make sure default access is set to READ/WRITE, and DISABLE OPLOCKS, YES DISABLE OPLOCKS
5) Save it and log out of the NAS web interface
6) Log into a computer/server as Domain Admin and hit the nas via its UNC Path, i.e. "\\NAS"
7) Find the USERS share and right click on it and go to properties
8) Go to the security tab
9) Remove the "Everyone" group to strip the permissions (the NAS will add it back but with no permissions - this is OK)
10) Go to advanced
11) Add Domain Admins and give it full control (if you want your admins to be able to access the private files)
12) Add Domain Users and give it full control, BUT set it to THIS FOLDER ONLY (this will prevent users from seeing others private shares)
NOTE: Remember that the READYNAS adds the CREATOR/OWNER group by default, so this is why this will work
13) You are done with security settings, so apply and close all of this
14) Make sure your GPs are set up right if you use GPs to redirect docs (Mine is set to \\NAS\USERS\%USERNAME%\My Documents, with exclusive use turned OFF and do not move contents, and do not redirect to local when policy removed)
15) Have your users log in and test! It should work fine. Users can only see other users' folders if they navigate to the NAS, but cannot access them.

I hope this helps.

hoverman wrote:

All, Here is my setup: 1) Log into your NAS device (for arguments sake, I'll refer to mine as NAS) 2) DONT USE THE BUILT IN HOME SHARES! (they are REALLY a nice feature, but there is no GUI control over them) 3) Create a new share with no public access, I called mine USERS 4) Go into the CIFS share properties and make sure default access is set to READ/WRITE, and DISABLE OPLOCKS, YES DISABLE OPLOCKS 5) Save it and log out of the NAS web interface 6) Log into a computer/server as Domain Admin and hit the nas via its UNC Path, i.e. "\\NAS" 7) Find the USERS share and right click on it and go to properties 8) Go to the security tab 9) Remove the "Everyone" group to strip the permissions (the NAS will add it back but with no permissions - this is OK) 10) Go to advanced 11) Add Domain Admins and give it full control (if you want your admins to be able to access the private files) 12) Add Domain Users and give it full control, BUT set it to THIS FOLDER ONLY (this will prevent users from seeing others private shares) NOTE: Remember that the READYNAS adds the CREATOR/OWNER group by default, so this is why this will work 13) You are done with security settings, so apply and close all of this 14) Make sure your GPs are set up right if you use GPs to redirect docs (Mine is set to \\NAS\USERS\%USERNAME%\My Documents, with exclusive use turned OFF and do not move contents, and do not redirect to local when policy removed) 15) Have your users log in and test! It should work fine. Users can only see other users' folders if they navigate to the NAS, but cannot access them. I hope this helps.

This doesn't work for me either. I created a new share as described above, with oplocks disabled. Created a test user and mapped his home directory to the new share. I created a folder under the user name, put some files in the new folder. I've tried syncing with the registry entries described previously, and without. It doesn't effing work.

A manual sync fails on every file in the offline folder. If I let the laptop sync on its own, then the sync will pass, but go offline and I can't open any of the files because they aren't available.

Extremely frustrating... :evil:

I'm running W7 pro and several 1100's running 4.1.7, the latest as of this writing.

SUCCESS! I have my Windows 7 machines synchronizing offline files with the default home directories created automatically by the ReadyNAS. Here is what I did to make it work:

1. Install the SSH root access add-on, and login as root to the ReadyNAS via SSH


2. Edit the Samba configuration, adding the following lines to the [global] section of /etc/samba/smb.conf using the vi editor:
   

   
   oplocks = 1
   level2 oplocks = 1
   kernel oplocks = 0
   create mask = 777
   map archive = 1
   map system = 1
   map hidden = 1
   



3. Restart the Samba service:
   

   /etc/init.d/samba restart <enter>



4. Add the following DWORD values to the registry of the W7 clients desiring offline files to ReadyNAS shares:
   

   
   HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\NetCache\RoundUpWriteTimeOnSync = 1
   HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\mrxsmb\OplocksDisabled = 0
   HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\LanmanServer\Parameters\EnableOplocks = 1
   HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters\EnableOplocks = 1
   



5. Close the registry editor, reboot, then go select the folder(s) on your modified ReadyNAS that you wish to sync for offline use.


References:
The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog: Using Offline Files with Samba / EMC Servers, & NAS Devices
http://blogs.technet.com/b/filecab/archive/2007/03/16/using-offline-files-with-samba-emc-servers-nas-devices.aspx

How can you make this persist across reboots? Whenever I reboot my NAS the smb.conf file is reset