14 DAY TRIAL // Offline Files is a feature that has been introduced as early as Windows 2000, and Windows users that are familiar with a SMB server are probably already aware of it. In Windows Vista the Offline files feature has been enhanced with focus on streamlining transition and improving synchronization.
Via Offline Files, Vista users will be able to mark folders and sub-folders to be available offline by caching copies of the files onto a local hard drive. Such files present two modes of operation - online and offline, depending on the connectivity status of the user.
Windows Vista delivers an automated synchronization and transfer process. "When Windows Vista detects that the server is available, not only do we automatically synchronize any files and folders that changed, but we also automatically redirect any open files to the online copy," revealed Jim Allchin, Microsoft Co-President, Platform and Services Division.
Vista also adds a forced transition mode button between the online and offline status. Via the Work Offline button in the Explorer toolbar of shared folders, users will be able to force transition in and out of offline mode in order to check what documents are available on the local hard drive.
"We did some other "fit-and-finish" things to Offline Folders to make it more usable as well. One example of this is the way that we synchronize the offline files with the online copy. Offline Files in Windows Vista keeps track of the blocks that are modified while offline and only transfers the changed blocks to the server. This makes synchronization of changes from the client to the server much faster. I should note that this optimization is only used when transferring changes from client to server; it is not used when transferring changes from the server to the client," added Allchin.
Navigate to a file server and then select "Always Available Offline" option from the right-click contextual menu, in order to enable the Offline Files feature. This way, the files will be automatically cached.