Windows Vista: The Missing Manual

19.5. Offline Files: Business ¢ Enterprise ¢ Ultimate

The offline files feature is designed primarily for laptop lovers. It lets you carry off files that generally live on your office network, so you can get some work done while you're away.

Then, when you return and connect your laptop to the office network, Windows automatically copies your edited, updated documents back to their original locations on the network, intelligently keeping straight which copies are the most recent. (And vice versaif people changed the network copies while you were away, Windows copies them onto your laptop.)

Figure 19-16. Right-click the icon of a file or folder that's on another computer on the network. From the shortcut menu, choose Always Available Offline. (A checkmark appears. To stop making this file or folder available offline, choose the same command again.) Your PC takes a quick moment to copy the files onto your own hard drive (that is, on the client machineyour laptop) .

It's a great feature for corporate workers, which explains why it's not available in the Home Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista. And it's been greatly simplified since the Windows XP version. For example, reconnecting to the network now triggers an automatic, seamless, invisible synchronization of the files you worked on while you were awaythere's no more alert balloon, no need to shut down all programs and manually trigger the sync, and so on.

Note: Although Microsoft developed Offline Files primarily for laptops that sometimes leave the network, it can also be a useful feature for desktop computers that belong to a network that isn't always up and running. Even so, this chapter refers to your computer as "the laptop," to avoid having to repeat "the laptop or desktop computer that isn't always on the network" 50 million times.

19.5.1. Preparing to Leave the Network

To tell Windows which files and folders you want to take away with you on the laptop, find them on the network. Proceed as shown in Figure 19-13.

Note: If you can't seem to make this work, it may be because the Offline Files master switch has been turned off. To see it, choose Start Control Panel. In Classic view, double-click Offline Files. On the General tab of the resulting dialog box, youll see the Enable Offline Files checkbox.

Normally, Windows copies the selected files and folders to your laptop rather slowly. It works in the background, between your mouse clicks and keystrokes.

If you're about to catch a flight, however, and you're nervous that you might not have the latest versions of all the network files you need, you can force Vista to do the entire copying job right now . To do that, choose Start All Programs Accessories Sync Center. Click the Offline Files partnership in the main window, and then click Sync on the toolbar.

GEM IN THE ROUGH

Windows SideShow

Laptop lovers, take notethe best is yet to come.

SideShow, a new Vista feature, is a tiny screen built right into the lids or undersides of certain new laptop, tablet, and palmtop models. The cool thing is that it shows you certain kinds of important informationyour calendar, new email, the time or weather, your address bookeven if the laptop is turned off or asleep.

This external screen uses practically no battery power; it's like having a little PalmPilot built into the laptop. When SideShow machines arrive on the market, you'll be able to specify which gadget (mini-program) you want to see. It can serve as an alarm that notifies you about an imminent meeting, play songs from your Media Player collection, check a flight time, and so onwithout ever having to open the laptop lid.

Will Microsoft's master SideShow plan find acceptance in the marketplace ? Let's meet back on this page in two years and discuss.

Tip: You can also sync only one particular folder. Just open it into a window and then click Sync on the toolbar. (In fact, you can even sync one individual file if you have to. Right-click it; from the shortcut menu, choose Sync.)

19.5.2. Working Offline

Now suppose you're untethered from the network, and you have a moment to get some work done. Open Sync Center and double-click the Offline Files icon (shown in Figure 19-15). There, before you, is a list of all the folders to which you "subscribed" before you left the network. See Figure 19-17 for details.

Figure 19-17. Top: When you open Sync Center, double-clicking Offline Files shows you a list of the folders you added to your offline list .

Bottom: Double-click one of them to see this surprising sight: icons for all the folders that were in that networked folder. Only the ones you explicitly requested are available, however; the rest display Xs .

You're free to work with offline files and folders exactly as you would if you were still connected to the network. You can revise , edit, and duplicate files, and even create new documents inside offline folders. The permissions remain the same as when you connect to the network.

Tip: There may be times when you want to work with your own laptop copies (rather than the network copies) even if you're still on the networkif, say, the network connection is not so much absent as slow and frustrating. To do that, open the folder on the network that contains the offline files. On its toolbar, click "Work offline." (This button appears only in folders that you've made available offline.)

19.5.3. Reconnecting to the Network

Now suppose you return from your jaunt away from the office. You plop your laptop down on your desk and reconnect the network cable.

Once Windows discovers that it's home again, it whirls into action, automatically comparing your set of offline files and folders with the master set on the network. (This process is much faster than it was in Windows XP, because Vista copies only the changed pieces of each filenot the entire file.)

Along the way, Vista attempts to handle discrepancies between the two sets of files as best it can. For example:

  • If your copy and a network copy of a file don't match, Windows wipes out the older version with the newer version, so both locations have exactly the same edition.

  • If you deleted your copy of a file, or somebody on the network deleted the original, Windows deletes the corresponding file so that it no longer exists on either machine. (That's assuming that nobody edited the file in the meantime.)

  • If somebody added a file to the network copy of a folder, you get a copy of it in your laptop's copy of the folder.

  • If you've edited an offline file that somebody on the network has deleted in the meantime, Windows offers you the choice to save your version on the network or to delete it from your laptop.

  • If you delete a file from your hard drive that somebody else on the network has edited in the meantime, Windows deletes the offline file from your hard drive but doesn't delete the network copy from the network.

  • If both your copy and the network copy of a file were edited while you were away, a balloon in the Notification Area notifies you of the conflict. Click it to open the Sync Center, where you can decide which version "wins." (Until you do that, the file in question remains offline, on your laptop.)

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