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Enable the Always Offline Mode to Provide Faster Access to Files

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Applies To: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2

This document describes how to use the Always Offline mode of Offline Files to provide faster access to cached files and redirected folders. Always Offline also provides lower bandwidth usage because users are always working offline, even when they are connected through a high-speed network connection.

In this document

Prerequisites

To enable the Always Offline mode, your environment must meet the following prerequisites.

  • An Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) domain, with client computers joined to the domain. There are no forest or domain functional-level requirements or schema requirements.

  • Client computers running Windows 8.1, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 R2, or Windows Server 2012. (Client computers running earlier versions of Windows might continue to transition to Online mode on very high-speed network connections.)

  • A computer with Group Policy Management installed.

Enabling the Always Offline mode

To enable the Always Offline mode, use Group Policy to enable the Configure slow-link mode policy setting and set the latency to 1 (millisecond). Doing so causes client computers running Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 to automatically use the Always Offline mode.

Note

Computers running Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows Server 2008 might continue to transition to the Online mode if the latency of the network connection drops below one millisecond.

To enable the Always Offline Mode

  1. Open Group Policy Management.

  2. To optionally create a new Group Policy Object (GPO) for Offline Files settings, right-click the appropriate domain or organizational unit (OU), and then click Create a GPO in this domain, and link it here.

  3. In the console tree, right-click the GPO for which you want to configure the Offline Files settings and then click Edit. The Group Policy Management Editor appears.

  4. In the console tree, under Computer Configuration, expand Policies, expand Administrative Templates, expand Network, and expand Offline Files.

  5. Right-click Configure slow-link mode, and then click Edit. The Configure slow-link mode window appears.

  6. Click Enabled.

  7. In the Options box, click Show. The Show Contents window appears.

  8. In the Value name box, specify the file share for which you want to enable Always Offline mode.

  9. To enable Always Offline mode on all file shares, type *.

  10. In the Value box, type Latency=1 to set the latency threshold to one millisecond, and then click OK.

Note

By default, when in Always Offline mode, Windows synchronizes files in the Offline Files cache in the background every two hours. To change this value, use the Configure Background Sync policy setting.

See Also

Folder Redirection, Offline Files, and Roaming User Profiles overview
Deploy Folder Redirection with Offline Files