Folder Redirection / Offline Files

B

beta_psullivan

Bit poster
I have been testing the trial version of parallels desktop for Mac (both 5.0.9220 and 5.0.9308) and have identified an issue with offline files in windows XP and windows 7. The following outlines my observations:

1) Imported a Windows 7 Ultimate virtual machine (in which offline files was working for redirected "desktop" and "my documents") from VMWare Fusion. Following import, offline files synchronization stopped working.
2) Had a copy of the same VMWare Fusion VM (Windows 7 Ultimate) as above (pre import), powered up VM in Fusion and verified offline files still worked.
3) Reloaded operating system (Windows 7 Ultimate) in parallels desktop from DVD image. Offline files still did not work.
4) As a test, loaded Windows XP SP3 from CD in a Parallels VM and verified that offline files synchronization does not work.
5) Verified that offline files synchronization does work in VMWare fusion using WindowsXP SP3 as guest OS.

I updated to 5.0.9308 to see if the issue was resolved, and it still exists. For reference, I can browse to the folders on the network shares from the guest OS's within parallels desktop, so there are no networking issues. I have also attempted to run filemon and procmon against the guest OS's to determine the cause, but there is nothing apparent (although I don't see mobsync.exe accessing the content on the network folders containing the content like I believe it should). I have also terminated all parallels services to see if the same behavior exists, and it does (having experienced issues with VPN services causing similar issues in the past). To me it appears to be either a problem with the virtualized hardware / driver in the guest OS, or the kernel extensions in the host OS. The behavior has also been verified to exist with both shared networking and the virtual network adapter configured to expplicitly use the builtin ethernet adapter on my Macbook Pro.
 
Here's an additional piece of information on this. I tried switching to a WindowsXP SP3 native "Realtek RTL8029(AS)-based Ethernet Adapter (Generic)" driver and experienced the same results, so the issue does not appear to be caused by the parallels NIC driver.
 
I too would be interested in having confirmation if Offline Files in Windows XP can work in Parallels. So far mine is not functioning properly and I do not understand why (possible bug?).

One of the main reasons I purchased Parallels is because I heard that it gives as close to native XP performance as possible - if Offline Files do not work this is a deal breaker.
 
Broken.

I've recently encounter an issue related to this one. A couple of users on my network insist on having Apple computers and using bootcamp for their windows needs. Recently, a windows update destroyed one of my bootcamp users. I used Parallels to fix the problem and apply the bootcamp update.

As a result of installing Parallels, the synchronization of offline files is completely and utterly broken. I found that it is related to the installation of Parallels Tools. When you install Parallels Tools, an administrative template is applied to the Local Computer Policy object. If you use the RSoP MMC snap-in to scan the applied settings, you'll find this one under "Administrative Templates" -> "Extra Registry Settings".

SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\NetCache\DisableFRAdminPin = 1

This baby right here completely disables offline files synchronization. Even though I uninstalled Parallels Tools and the computer is now running again with boot camp; the issue persists. I can not have this computer synchronize the offline file cache. I just will not work anymore. I'm going to have to tip my hat here to the Parallels team for making me re-install Windows on a machine just so I could get offline files working again.

So, the long and the short of it is this: Parallels Tools applies an administrative template to disable offline file synchronization effectively breaking it.

Awesome Job!
 
Just as a quick addendum I was able to fix the synchronization issues without a reinstall.

I uninstalled parallels tools completely, then the local computer policy to default settings per this (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313222) KB article. Afterwards I re-initialized the offline files cache (ctrl+shift+click delete in the offline files tab of Explorer->Tools->Folder Options (Offline Files Tab).

Afterwards, the sync appeared to be fully operational.
 
Bringing this back - It appears that Parallels sets the DisableFRAdminPin policy (HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\NetCache\DisableFRAdminPin), which effectively disables the automatic administrative offline caching of redirected folders.. I need to know how to turn this function OFF!
 
Hi
Has anyone found a solution for this problem?
Otherwise I must switch back to VmWare and I don't like this.
Greetings from switzerland
Rico
 
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