Offline files missing in network and internet

If you do not see Offline files option in Network and Internet in Control Panel, then it could be that you are running an edition of OS which does not support Offline Files feature. Offline files feature is provided only in Vista Business and Vista Ultimate editions. It is not supported by Vista Home and Vista Home premium editions. Also Windows Server 2008 does not have offline files feature by default. We need to install Desktop Experience on Server 2008 machines to use offline files feature.

Make a share available offline

After enabling Offline files feature as said in this article , we can start marking network shares for offline availability. Right click the network share/folder/file you want to be available offline, you can see the option 'Always available offline' in the context menu. Click on it and offline files marks the selected file/folder for offline availability and copies them to the local CSC folder.

Make network share available offline in Windows Vista

Offline files feature allows to access network shares even in offline mode i.e even if the machine is not connected to the network. To use this feature first thing we need to do is enabling offline files feature. This can be done as explained in the post How to enable offline files in Vista.

Once offline files is enabled, we need to mark the share for offline availability. This can be done as explained below.

1. Open the network share and right click on the share.
2. Click on "Always Available Offline"

Now the whole share will copied to the local offline files folder. Once the share is copied to the local machine, then onwards the share will be available for offline access. We can even edit the files in offline mode. When we connect the machine back to the network all the changes saved locally will be automatically replicated on the server copies too.

The above applies to Windows Vista. The steps are same for Windows XP too, but the option name to be selected in the step 2 above is "Make available offline". It is renamed as "Always available offline" in Windows Vista.

Offline Files folder location in Vista

Offline files are stored in the folder [systemdrive]:\windows\csc. If the system drive is C: then offline files cache will be in the folder c:\windows\csc. This is system default location and can be changed by editing the registry key Cachelocation.

How to view offline files in Vista

On Windows Vista you can view offline cached files as per the following steps.

• Click on Start button(Shortcut for this: Ctrl-Esc)
• Select Control Panel from the start menu
  
  
• Click on Network and Internet 
• Click on Offline Files.
• Click on 'View Offline Files'.

Note: This article applies only to Windows Vista. On windows XP the mechanism to view offline files is different from the above.

Windows Vista command line tips

In the below site you can find lot of command line tips that are applicable to all versions of Windows OS including Windows Vista. Click on the link to know the tips.

Command line tips on Windows vista

How to disable offline files in Vista

On Windows Vista system Offline files feature can be disabled as follows.

• Click on Start button (Shortcut for this: Ctrl-Esc (or) windows key)
• Click on Control Panel 
• Click on Network and Internet 
• Click on Offline Files.
• In the 'General' tab click on 'Disable Offline Files'
  
• Click on 'continue' if user account control asks for confirmation. 

Delete offline files in Vista

The local cache of offline files can be deleted/reinitialized by setting the registry key FormatDatabase to 1 under the following node.


HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters

Value Name: FormatDatabase
Type: REG_DWORD


After this machine need to be rebooted. Post reboot we can notice that there are no offline files stored in CSC cache.

Important note:

• This registry change will be effective for only one reboot.
• This registry change works only for Windows Vista, in XP we have registry key under a different node path. In XP we also have user interface button to delete offline files.