What are Windows Offline Files
You can choose the files (or folders) on your shared network drive that you want to make available offline. Windows automatically creates a copy of each file on your local computer, such as a portable or desktop computer that occasionally connects to your workplace shared network drive. These file copies are called offline files. You can work with these files even when you are not connected to the workplace network, and the next time you connect, Windows automatically synchronizes your offline files with the original files on a shared network drive.
When you reconnect to the network, your changes are added to the files on the shared network. If someone else made changes to the same file, you can save your version, keep the other version, or save both.
Support
Windows Offline Synchronization feature for files archived using Commvault is only supported for versions Windows 8.1 and later. This is due to a Microsoft limitation.
Location of Windows Offline File Copies
If a folder (or file) is configured as a Windows Offline file, Microsoft Windows creates a copy of the file in the %windir%\CSC directory. This directory and the offline files will be available if the user gets disconnected from the network.
How Does Commvault Work with Windows Offline files?
Commvault can be configured to work with Windows Offline files. Once the files on the shared network drive are synchronized to the local computer, users will be able to access the files locally from their desktop or laptop.
If a user opens an offline file when the network connection to the share is not available, the system will open the local copy of the file.
If the network connection is available, Commvault recalls the file and makes it available to the user on the local computer.
The users always have full copies of the document on their laptops or desktops and are able to access all the files even when disconnected from the network.
NOTE: Due to a Microsoft limitation, we recommend that you exclude volumes from archiving that contain Windows Offline files.
How Does It Work?
The client computer contains the archived files (stubs) on a shared network drive. During a synchronization operation with the shared network drive, the stubs are recalled and the recalled files are made available on the client computer.
When a OnePass archive job runs, the recalled files are archived (stubbed) again. During the next synchronization operation, the stubs in the shared network drive are recalled, whereas the stubs on the client computer are not recalled.