Can't Delete Files If Offline Files is Enabled

[Niall22]

A number of users on my company network are having big problems with deleting their documents from the "My Documents" folder. They use laptops so I have redirected the "My Documents" folder to their user folders and enabled offline files so that they can work on their documents when they are out of the office with their laptops.

The offline files option seems to be the cause of the problems. Some users can't delete their files because it says they are "in use". Of course, they aren't. If I disconnect their network cable suddenly the files can be deleted. Also, if I disable offline files altogether there are no problems. Has anyone else experienced this problem? By the way, we use XP Pro here.

Niall

 

[bcastner]

If you do not need the off-line file option, then fine.

But is suspect your problem lies elsewhere:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=811492

And as a general checklist:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;814112

It is more likely that both SMB signing and opportunistic locking issues are the real cause of your problem.

 

[Niall22]

Thanks for your suggestions, bcastner.

The first article you referred to deals with it taking a long time to delete files across a network. Since I can't delete files at all, I don't think that's the issue.

The second article talks about issues with SMB signing between Windows XP clients and Windows 2000 servers. We (unfortunately) are still using Windows NT servers as our Domain Controllers which is where the user folders reside. Therefore, I don't believe the issue has to do with SMB signing.

This seems strictly like an issue with offline files to me. We have not had any other issues with deleting files across our network, only on laptops with offline files enabled. We need the offline files capability so it's not something I can disable. I have searched the Microsoft Knowledge Base but to no avail.

We are upgrading to Windows 2003 servers at the end of the summer, so if I don't figure it out by then I'm hoping that will solve the problem. I don't think Windows XP likes running in a Windows NT server environment too much.



Niall

 

[bcastner]

There are two things that I would like you to check, if possible:

1. Do you have a third party firewall installed? Kerio comes to mind, but others can create exactly this issue under an NT server;

2. What are the file extensions of the files you are trying to delete? .avi are a known problem, but others can be problematic.

Please respond.

 

[Niall22]

No 3rd party firewall is installed on the clients.
The most common file type they are trying to delete are Microsoft Word documents.


Niall

 

[bcastner]

On your XP clients:
Start, Run, control userpasswords2
Remove any entry for the older and existing shares.

Let me know if this helped.

 

[Niall22]

This just allows me to access user accounts that are cached on the machine. I'm not sure what you mean when you tell me to delete older and existing shares.

Niall