Offline setting of shared folders in Windows 7

Whenever a new version of the operating system comes out, it always gives us a lot of surprises. This time the Windows 7 operating system is no exception. When we set up a shared folder, open the properties, share, and advanced sharing window in turn, we will be surprised to see that there is a button called "Cache" in the box. (The author personally thinks that the name of this button is not worthy of the name. It might be better to set it offline.) We click this button to open the shared folder offline settings window as shown below. In this window, you can make offline settings for shared files. This feature is not available in the mainstream XP operating system. So what is the function of it? I will try it here first.

First, the problem of using shared folders.

The client that is commonly used in enterprises today is the XP operating system. There are some intractable problems with using shared files on this platform. For example, users may store some important files in a shared folder on the network. When the user needs to use these files, and suddenly finds that the network connection is not up, the user will be furious. In addition, sometimes the network speed of the enterprise will become slower for various reasons. At this point, the operation of sharing files on the network will also be affected. If you open a large shared file or save the modified content to a shared file, the speed will be very slow and so on. These are all problems encountered when using shared files in the XP operating system. In order to solve these practical problems of users, the shared folder offline function is proposed in the Windows 7 operating system.

Second, the principle of offline files.

In fact, the offline principle of this shared file is relatively simple, similar to offline web pages. As shown in the figure above, as long as the shared folder is set, select "All files and programs opened by the user from the share will be automatically available offline", then open the shared folder on other clients. If the operating system automatically creates a copy of the shared folder on the machine. This copy is called an offline file. When the user opens the shared folder next time, if the shared folder is unavailable due to various reasons (such as network failure), the operating system will automatically open the offline file. When the shared folder returns to normal, the client's operating system automatically synchronizes the shared files. To ensure that the content in the shared file is consistent with the content in the offline file.

In addition, if the network speed of the enterprise is slow and the other party asks the shared folder to have an impact, the user can also manually set the offline file directly. Work offline with files first to increase productivity. Then, when the network is back to normal, synchronize it again. This allows the use of shared files to be less affected by network speed.

Third, the use of offline files.

In fact, the offline file function of shared folders has a great application in reality. Mainly reflected in the following aspects.

One is to facilitate employees to work offline. Employees can't work online all the time. For example, when an employee is on a business trip or a meeting in a conference room, the network will be temporarily interrupted. In the absence of offline files, they need to copy the files from the shared folders on the network to their own computers, and then use them when they are on a business trip or a meeting. If you forget to copy the file, it will be troublesome. Now, with the offline file feature, these users are convenient. Because at this time, even if employees are not connected to the corporate network, they cannot access shared folders on the network. However, there will still be a copy of the shared folder on the user's client. This offline file can help users solve unexpected situations when they cannot open a shared folder on the network. This offline file is very useful when employees are on a business trip or in other situations where they cannot connect to the corporate network.

The second is to help employees improve their work efficiency when the network speed is not ideal. If the network speed of the enterprise is relatively slow, working with shared files on the network, the work efficiency is very low. In order to improve work efficiency, employees can work by using offline files on this machine in any use. Then let the operating system synchronize the shared files when it is free. Because at any time, users can manually synchronize files on the network. This process is very simple, just press a sync button.

Fourth, the precautions in the synchronization process.

If the offline file feature is enabled in the Windows 7 operating system, a copy of the shared file is automatically created when the user accesses the shared folder. As shown in the figure above, if you select “only the files or programs specified by the user can be used offline”, only copies will be created for some special files; if you select “Users open from this share” All files and programs will be automatically available offline. Then all files or folders in this shared folder will be created locally on the client. Offline files can be synchronized with shared files when the network is back to normal or manually operated by the user. If there is only one employee using this shared file, then there is no problem. However, if there are multiple users using this shared folder at the same time, it may be a bit of trouble to use.

Under normal circumstances, the user changed the contents of a shared file while offline. The client can synchronize the modified content to the shared file on the network the next time it is online. Note that during the process of synchronization, the system will automatically determine which content has been changed, and the system will only synchronize the changed content. But what happens if more than one user changes the shared file while offline? For example, when an employee is on a business trip, a file in the offline file is modified. When the employee was on a business trip, there were employees in the company who modified the shared file. Then, when the employee on the business trip returns to the company and synchronizes the shared folder, a synchronization conflict occurs. Because during synchronization, the employee's operating system needs to synchronize the offline files on the machine to the shared folder on the network; the operating system in the shared folder on the network also synchronizes the contents of its shared folder to In an offline file. Because both have changed. After that, a synchronization conflict will occur. In this case, whoever synchronizes, the operating system will give the user the right to choose this option. The user can choose whether the content in the offline file updates the shared file on the network, or whether the shared file on the network overwrites the file in the offline file. The operating system displays a dialog box for the user to make a selection. In this case, the user is best not to rush to choose, or to temporarily set the offline file on this machine to offline. You need to first confirm which version of the file is what you want, so as not to lose data due to synchronization errors.

This also reminds the system administrator that the best permissions control is required when setting up shared folders. For example, it can be set as a file-only owner who can modify, delete, etc. the file. For other users, you can only have read-only access to this shared file, but you cannot modify or delete it. In this case, no matter whether it is offline or online, only one employee can modify the file to avoid synchronization conflicts.

Five, offline folder size settings.

Since the operating system will create a copy of the shared folder on this machine, it is equivalent to copying the shared folder locally. For this reason, if the shared folder is relatively large, it will occupy a relatively large space for the local client. All of these offline files need to be limited in capacity if necessary. By default, this capacity is unlimited. In other words, the size of the offline folder is the size of the shared folder. If the hard disk capacity is guaranteed, you can leave this default setting unchanged. Because only the updated files are synchronized even when the files are synchronized. All this does not affect the performance of data synchronization. The size of the offline file needs to be controlled only when the client's hard disk space is limited.

If you want to set the size of the offline file, you can right click on the offline file and select the Disk Usage tab. In this tab, the system administrator can see the disk space occupied by the current offline file; also the system administrator can also set the maximum space available for offline files in this tab.