Sync Center and Network Drives 2021

Question

I am using FolderRedirection GPO on a Windows Server 2019 Standard, most of our client computers are Windows 10, we have a few that are Windows 8.1.

Some client computers of users who use heavily network drives (which are provided by a centralized QNAP Linux-based NAS) are experiencing the following:

I found this on another locked thread from a home user having exactly the same issue I am having:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-networking/sync-center-and-network-drives/6b22ff59-0687-4092-bd9c-e3f29353541a

"I have been having a strange problem where Sync Center seems to be storing network drives as offline folders.
Even though I am connected to the network all the time and the network drives never go offline they still become unavailable.

The network drive appears in the sync partnerships but I have not set these up and have been unable to remove them even when turning offline files off and back on again.

The only Sync which should be there is the folder for eel1651 the rest are network drives which it should not be trying to Sync. It is causing files to become unavailable even when I am currently working on them, so I can't save them..."

I am using "net use" as netlogon scripts to mount different shares from the NAS, I mount them as a drive "P:\," but two of our sever users needs to constantly access one of the shares in that NAS. Every few days (sometimes only hours) the Sync Center adds that drive as a sync partnership and it renders the P:\ drive useless since it only lets the user see very few files and not the entire directory.

I tried enabling the "Remove "Make Available Offline" for these files and folders" from the FolderRedirection GPO adding every NAS Shared folder, I also tried the 'Remove "Make Available Offline" command" from the same GPO (not at the same time, because those two policies are contradictory) to no avail, it keeps coming back.

Every few days (sometimes hours), I have to remote-in, disable the "Offline Files," restart, the login as Administrator, browse to 'C:\Windows\CSC', play around for a while with the permissions, and remove the additional namespace "\10.0.0.66\Legal" and then I log out, go back to the user to whom this is happening to, re-enabled "Offline Files" and then when I restart it is gone.

And, it comes back later, for the user that was having the same issue, somehow it just did not happen again after resetting his Windows back to default, then it just stopped. But, with this other user, I already reset the computer back to default twice, and the issue keeps coming back.

Any ideas... Please help...

Accepted Answer

I thought about a workaround, since there seems to not be any permanent solution from a GPO level, how about I run a startup script for all users. It would need to check the CSC amespace folder for the existence of 10.0.0.66, take ownership of the folder and delete it. That way, once the boot sequence is completed and the Sync Center starts, that Sync Partnership is already deleted.

To avoid any time-consuming processes that could delay the boot up, I would need it to check if CSC\v2.0.6 amespace\10.0.0.66 exists, and if it does, to take ownership of it as Administrator and then delete it.

I imagine it will first check the echo of the CMD dir command, and then if 10.0.0.66 exist, goto take ownership, and when the ownership is done, then delete and exit.

I am not even sure how to check the echo of a command like dir, anyone who could give me any suggestions?

I am thinking it would have to be something like this:

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: Automatically check & get admin rights
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
@echo off
CLS
ECHO.
ECHO ===============================
ECHO Running Admin Command Prompt
ECHO ===============================

:init
setlocal DisableDelayedExpansion
set "batchPath=%~0"
for %%k in (%0) do set batchName=%%~nk
set "vbsGetPrivileges=%temp%\OEgetPriv_%batchName%.vbs"
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion

:checkPrivileges
NET FILE 1>NUL 2>NUL
if '%errorlevel%' == '0' ( goto gotPrivileges ) else ( goto getPrivileges )

:getPrivileges
if '%1'=='ELEV' (echo ELEV & shift /1 & goto gotPrivileges)
ECHO.
ECHO **************************************
ECHO Invoking UAC for Privilege Escalation
ECHO **************************************

ECHO Set UAC = CreateObject^("Shell.Application"^) > "%vbsGetPrivileges%"
ECHO args = "ELEV " >> "%vbsGetPrivileges%"
ECHO For Each strArg in WScript.Arguments >> "%vbsGetPrivileges%"
ECHO args = args ^& strArg ^& " "  >> "%vbsGetPrivileges%"
ECHO Next >> "%vbsGetPrivileges%"
ECHO UAC.ShellExecute "!batchPath!", args, "", "runas", 1 >> "%vbsGetPrivileges%"
"%SystemRoot%\System32\WScript.exe" "%vbsGetPrivileges%" %*
exit /B

:gotPrivileges
setlocal & pushd .
cd /d %~dp0
if '%1'=='ELEV' (del "%vbsGetPrivileges%" 1>nul 2>nul  &  shift /1)

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::START
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

:start
cd C:\Windows\CSC\v2.0.6
amespace
dir
if '%1' == 'dir' ( echo 10.0.0.66 /1 & goto takeOwnership ) else ( goto Exit )

:takeOwnership
takeown /f C:\Windows\CSC\v2.0.6
amespece\10.0.0.66\* /R /A
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::Incomplete step
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
if '%1' == 'takeown' ( echo ::missing text:: goto delPartnership ) else ( goto Start )

:delPartnership
del C:\Wndows\CSC\v2.0.6
amespace\10.0.0.66 /y
cd C:\Windows\CSC\v2.0.6
amespace
dir
if '%1' == 'dir' ( echo 10.0.0.66 /1 & goto Start ) else ( goto Exit )

:Exit
exit

Can anyone check if I am correct?

Answer

Hello,

Thank you so much for posting here.

We have not experienced the same or similar issue as described. As per my understanding, if we disable the "offline Files", there is no such issue. This issue only occurred when we enable "Offline Files". If there is any misunderstanding, please let me know.

Since we enable "Offline Files", how the offline settings are configured? Such as:

The options are shown as below"

Only the files and programs that users specify are available offline: the user must select the files from the shared folder that he wants to be cached to the hard disk, and only the selected files can be used offline.
No files or programs from the shared folder are available offline: it means that the shared folder does not provide offline functions.
All files and programs that users open from the shared folder are automatically available offline: as long as the files that the user has accessed in the shared folder, they will be automatically cached in the user's hard disk for offline use.

Thank you so much for your understanding and support.

Best regards,
Hannah Xiong

============================================

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Answer

Hello,

Thank you so much for your kindly reply.

As per my understanding, if the other sync partnership to be added automatically, we could kindly have a check whether we configured the group policy as shown below.

To check the group policy result, Open CMD, run as administrator and then run gpresult /h C:\report.html.

For any question, please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,
Hannah Xiong

============================================

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Answer

Again, thank you HannahXiong-MSFT.

Maybe I should explain it again from the top.

Our Server/Domain Controller has as part of its design, a FolderRedirection policy, it is this:

In other words, it includes "ApptData(Roaming)," "Desktop," "Documents," "Pictures," "Music" & "Videos" from each user's Windows profile. All that gets sync to "\CCDCMAINSERVER" as shown below.

However, for some users, Windows keep automatically adding an extra sync partnership that should not be adding, a network location "\10.0.0.66\Legal," I am attempting to stop that partnership by using "Remove "Make available Offline" for these files and folders" GPO, like this

55457-remove-make-available-offline-for-these-folder-fil.png

But, Windows keeps adding it, and this is what we do not want

Any suggestions?

Answer

Hello,

You are welcome. Thank you so much for the detailed information.

So sorry that we did not encounter this issue before. And I failed to find the related information or solution about this issue after lots of research.

We mainly focus on the group policy issue. As described, we have configured "Remove Make Available Offline for these files and folders" for the network location. Have we checked that the group policy is successfully applied?

We could check by running “gpresult /h” to get a detailed group policy result report, then check if the specific settings get applied or not.

For computer configuration:
Logon one client and open CMD, run as administrator. Type gpresult /h C:\report.html and click Enter. Open report file to check the policies under Computer Details.

Besides, for some users, this network location would automatically added to the sync partnership. Frankly speaking, I'm at the end of what suggestions I can offer. Maybe someone else has ran into something similar before and can chip in.

According to my research, there are some discussion about deleting the offline file cache. I do not know whether it is helpful but hope it could be give us some inspiration.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/24346edb-80ed-49a7-b7b5-aecebff7b725/how-to-delete-the-offline-file-cache-or-reset-the-offline-file-cache-in-windows-10?forum=win10itpronetworking

https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/networking/re-initialize-offline-files-cache-database

Thank you so much for your understanding and support.

Best regards,
Hannah Xiong

============================================

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