Take WSS folders offline (& in sync) without purchasing anything.

I have had a number of queries from customers about the simplest way to take a folder of documents that are stored in a WSS site offline with them when the leave the office, and keep those folders updated when they get back into the office.

Well … without going and purchasing a nice tool like Revelation … here is what I have found to work pretty well. (Note: This will only work in Windows XP as far as I know.)

1. First you need to go and download the SyncToy which is one of the Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP. This little guy will allow you to keep two folders in sync.

2. Then you need to go and create yourself a ‘

Network Place

’ for the WSS folder you would like to keep in sync. To do this you need to:

 

  • Open ‘My Network Places’
  • Right click ‘My Network Places’ and choose ‘Map Network Drive’
  • click ‘Sign up for an online storage or connect to a network server’
  • Next
  • Click ‘Choose another network location’
  • enter in the full path to the WSS folder E.g. https://someserver.com/sites/site/folder (Note: i just entered the full path ... didnt try and browse for the folder)
  • complete the wizard … and you will have a new Network Place .

3. Start SyncToy and create a new folder pair. I chose the ‘Synchronise’ option. Pick a local folder to sync to for the left folder and choose your newly created network place for the right folder.

4. Hit the sync button … and all working correctly you should have the folders all sync’d. You might need to enter credentials for your WSS site if it does not use integrated auth.

I am now using this to keep a couple of WSS folders on my laptop. One is an internally hosted and the other is externally hosted. They both seem to work well.

 

What would be really cool is doing this with your 'My Documents' folder and your My Site. I might have to try this out.

 

You can also schedule the SyncToy to keep the folders updated. See the Help documentation to see how to do with the Windows Task Scheduler.

Happy offline foldering!

 

UPDATE:

There seem to be some people who are having problems with this. So i have taken another look at it.

I have followed the instructions to the letter above & have no problems.

Most people seem to be having the problem that they cant pick the Network Place in Sync Toy. I have no problem picking my newly created Network Place for the left or the right folder.

Something to try would be to manually type the address into the address box, instead of picking it via the browse button.

E.g. \\servername.domain.com\DocumentLibraryName

See if that helps.

FYI: i am running XP SP2 with all latest hotfixes etc...

UPDATE 2:

I have been playing around with Frontpage RPCs and WSS recently. One of the things i have noticed is that there are issues with dealing with SSL certs if you dont have things set up right. I have found that my code works perfectly if there are no certificate validation errors (like untrusted cert etc... / expired).

This makes me think. Are the problems people are having due to a SSL cert not being valid? A good way to test this is to vist the WSS site in IE and if you go NO errors or warnings about the cert then you should be right.

Let me know if this works for you.