I do not think that this is a NetApp problem. The problem you describe occurs on all XP clients since the Offline files cache is configured per-computer rather than per-user. When one user forces a sync, files for all users of the system attempt to sync. Since user1 does not have rights to the folder of user2, the sync process appears to fail.

The solution to this problem is to implement the "Purge files for non-primary users at logoff" option that was introduced with XP SP2: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811660/en-us

We have a .bat file that we run to set this option for all shared computers that also use Offline Files.

Windows Vista is supposed to implement a per-user Offline File Cache, so this particular problem should go away eventually.

-Greg Mackinnon University of Vermont

Christopher Mende wrote:

Hi All,

Anyone run into issues with offline file synchronization for homedirs?

Have an issue where user1 logs in and out, and sync works just fine.

User 2 logs in and out & syncs, plus it tries to sync user1 again, which fails.

According to M$, if you were using one of their servers, the share permissions on the user share would be set to Full Control, and Windows would actually mask the failure.

Seems this isn’t happening when using the filer – any ideas short of scrapping the auto-homedir feature? How does one change the share permissions on these auto-gen’d shares which aren’t accessible via traditional methods? If that’s really the fix.

Christopher Mende

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