> > I use the "Offline Files" feature when I travel. I can right-click a
> > network folder and go to 'Make Available Offline', and I'll
> always have
> > a recent copy on my laptop and when I make changes they get
> committed
> > back to the server when i connect to the network again.
> I've only used
> > it with files that I'm the only one to access/modify, so
> I'm not sure
> > how well it works with more extensive things... I'm pretty
> sure it can't
> > merge changes on a file by file basis, but I could be wrong...
> I discovered "offline files" and ran some quick tests: I just stopped
> the Samba server to fake being "offline". It seemed to work, and I
> marked a directory with thousands of files in hundreds of
> subdirectories. I got a few warnings with mdb and pst files not being
> able to sync which was interesting, but other than that it seemed to
> work in my limited testing. It'll be interesting to see what happens
> when a local user and the travelling user modify the same
> file. It's a given that whatever dialog pops up will confuse the
user...
I believe I got a dialog once when I accidentally modified the network
copy without first syncing the laptop'd version. It was simply a dialog
stating that they are different and they couldn't be merged, IIRC... I
think it gave an option to force it. It was an MS Word file that I
needed to manually merge to get things back to normal...
> Is "offline files" related to "my briefcase" or are they two separate
> concepts?
Honestly, I have no idea. I thought the "briefcase" terminology died
with NT and 98. Maybe it's just the old name for the 'Offline Files'
folder I can set to show up on my desktop... I'd suggest doing a search
on http://groups.google.com/ to see if there's a relation-- an archive
of 25 years of Usenet discussions come in quite handy sometimes... ;-)
--
Derek
©2004 Derek J. Kalweit |
