File replication and offline folders

[SBarrie]

I want to keep a reasonably up-to-date replica of user data on a backup Windows 2000 server but do not know the best way of doing this.

I have looked into client-side caching - using online folders to retain a local copy on the backup server - but cannot fathom how to get it to work. Can anyone tell me where I am going wrong?

Firstly in Explorer I clicked on Tools, Folder Options and enabled Offline files. Once I had done this Explorer showed that the folder was Online. Then I went to Tools, Synchronize and expected to be able to select files or folders to synchronize but the only option available was "My Current Home page" under "Offline web pages". I am obviously missing something. How do I select a folder to synchronize?

Is there another way to replicate file changes to another server without using client-side caching?

 

[WillShakespeare]

You need to look in the Group Policy under Administrative Templates -> Network -> Offline Files...
There are a number of switches where you can specify what folders and files specifically need to be synchronised. We have problems too, because we want to specify certain files and folders for certain individuals. This should be taken care of by My Current Home Page (Which is the HomeDrive of the user logged on, and not a Home Page as in Internet Explorer speak... a fact that was annoyingly confusing at first to me!).
Problem is that if you turn it on, you have to go through and turn on every switch, because by default if you connect to a drive on the network, perhaps by typing in \\server\userdata in the address bar, and not physically mapping, then the default action is to add this to the local user's offline synchronising... this can be very bad if you have large number of user folders in a userdata folder! (Ours is 40GB!)
There is a switch to turn off this default action though... we are still experimenting, but this is definitely the place to make changes.
If you are not using Group Policies, you should be able toa ccess this locally on each machine, through Local Security Settings...

Will